The Orion Star

Do You Want To Take My Picture?

Extraordinary fun

Ethereal thrills

A laugh so cruel

Fulfills me like fuel

I am not proud

Comfortably fake

Cerebral disconnect

Often recollect

Just to escape

This flat world

--From the song Evade

Lyrics By: Orion Bauwens

I'm inpatient for one hundred and twenty days. One hundred and twenty days! That's nearly four damn months!

It's my fault though. I was stupid and had a relapse. I thought I could get away with sneaking away into the bathroom. But as soon as my fingers were down my throat I knew I had made a mistake. It had been so long since I did that (eighty three days, to be exact) I gagged really loudly, and wretched even louder.

On the bright side I was happy that throwing up felt disgusting again like it was supposed to. But the down side was I had to go back to not being allowed in the bathroom alone. I had made it to where someone just stood outside the door. But that stupid incident landed me right back at square one, and it tacked on more days to my stay.

But now all that was over. I can't even describe the exhilaration behind knowing that when I walked out of the front door this time, it was for good. Don't get me wrong; there were some parts I liked. I liked the strict routine. I came to like the people. I liked the journals they dolled out, encouraging everyone to write.

Sometimes we had written assignments, but sometimes we didn't. I was the only one who had to ask for a new journal. Mine was stuffed full with lyrics, poems, notes to myself, notes to other people, drawings. Most of it was filled with my thoughts.

I carried it around with me always. I didn't realize how therapeutic journaling could be. It was great, purging my thoughts onto paper just like I used to purge food. Any time I had a negative thought about myself I would stop whatever I was doing to write it down.

Let's just say I wrote a lot.

But now here I was, duffel bag slung over my shoulder, grinning like a maniac. I was freshly shaven, which admittedly was weird. I have a bit of a baby face, and going that long without shaving I had accrued quite the beard. I had never had one in my entire life. So it was weird not having it suddenly, and it was weird that it was weird. I felt naked somehow.

I was happy I had shaved a few days prior to my release; sure enough my skin was irritated immediately after, and it had taken awhile to hack away at it. It was a cathartic release for me. Poetic, watching the hair fall from my face, revealing the young-looking man I once was. It was a metamorphosis back to myself, but I also felt new. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.  

The man staring back at me in the mirror, freshly shaven, deep dark eyes that were the cracks into my soul...Did I even know him anymore? Had he always been there, and he had just been locked away? Was he the same, or different? If he were different, just how different? Was I strong enough to find out?

Even worse--what if he wasn't different at all, and I had just wasted the past four months of my life? I fully admit I stood in front of that mirror a bit longer than I should have, gripping the sink edge until my knuckles turned white, afraid of this face that was looking back at me. Afraid of the unknown; afraid to admit to myself that I might never change for the better. I might spend the rest of my life hurting myself, hurting everyone around me.