Oleander

A prose poem about a girl named Oleander who struggles with eating disorders and self-harm and her search for purpose.

Oleander grips her stomach. She feels like it is protruding, an alien part not allowed on her body. She pinches the excess skin and hits her stomach. Dysphoria is all she feels. When she lies down, she feels like there's too much fat on her butt and hips. Then she looks in the mirror, sees tiny. Looks in the mirror, sees muscular, strong. For a moment she is happy.

She wakes up and eats ice-cream. The day is ruined. She'll have to start over. For lunch she has a veggie burger and a pear. Better. Healthy. No milk, because it tastes terrible, and there are hormones in it. No salad, because there was dressing on it.

She dances and flips. She feels like she is alive when she pounds  and soars through the airs. Her back bends like a graceful white swan. She grabs the ground and kicks over. She throws a back flip, lands and smiles. Her evergreen eyes smile softly; she blinks and the world fades to gray. She is surrounded by a family of demons. A little girl with red hair stands outside, alone and cold. Her mother and brother are there, but they do not see her. It is as if she barely exists. She is ephemeral, transient. Oleander runs away, fleeing from evil.

Oleander wanders around grassy fields and muddy paths in the woodlands. She sits down and thinks about anorexia. She was anorexic once - her will power and discipline was outstanding. It reminds her to write, these days. Oleander forces herself to sit by a blank page and color it with whatever words come. Let the words come, with no judgment.

The world is all white. This is a nightmare. There is offwhite snow and a white sky, white shapes. She is blind for a moment. Blind. She feels the cold ice around her ankles. It grips at her, like a monster with slimy, icy hands. She is drowning in ether.

Then Oleander wakes up. She thinks about cheese bread and chooses yogurt with fruit. She throws V-ups with power and goes on a run. She lets herself hate herself. She makes herself into a different person, a person that she can like. A person with beauty and strength, a person that is unafraid.

The day goes on. The days pass by. She wakes and sleeps and wakes again. Life feels so boring. And she wants more. More than going out and in and eating and exercising. More than writing. More than seeking superpowers. She seeks God instead, and hopes she can be the person He made her to be.

She does jumping squats to fix her thighs and butt. Maybe the cellulite will go away. Maybe her muscles will grow stronger. There is something her mom said that sticks with her, stays with her: you are strong, not just physically but spiritually and mentally and emotionally. You are strong. There's another thing she said that stays with her: I thought you were meant to travel the world writing novels. Not starving and binging, and sometimes, nostalgic about cutting herself.

Cuts. Red blood oozing from her arm, seeing the fat bubbles on her arms. Sometimes she can't help but say, this is wise. Why? Why is it wise? She wants to know.

And there is more. More than everything that matters and more while the earth is crashing and exploding and more than the volcanoes bleeding for Oleander. There is more. There is fire and ice, there is a freedom Oleander can't quite fathom yet. And the world fades away and she is in ether. She is screaming and screaming but nobody hears her.  She stares at the face in the mirror and her lips are sown shut, bloody with mud black stitches. Her eyes are bleeding. And it feels like nobody loves her, and she doesn't love anybody either. She doesn't know how to feel. That's why she cuts: to force herself to feel. That is what it's like to come alive.

Oleander is a phoenix. That is all. She lives like a phoenix and she grabs the grass in the botanical garden and stands up. All will be alright. She just needs time to pick herself up and make a life. Something that can be eternal.

That is all. Eternal. Immortality. That is all she has before she explodes, retreats, and comes back to alive. That is all. Ether. Snow. Being blind once and then seeing. To see. It is amazing. To live forever. So amazing, also. So much music and beauty and art in the world to gaze at forever. There is no price to pay. Oleander is there, a slender wraith singing. Found somewhere in-between good and evil. That is all. It is okay.

It is okay, to just be; to wake up again and again until you are okay. That is all. Go on. Nothing bad happened here, only a mystery. Nothing bad, just a storm. Lightning strikes once and thunder feels excruciating. Keep going. Don't watch. The show is not yet ready to go on. But it will.