I am a Product

I am a product.

No, not that kind, not the kind that can be bought

For there is no price tag large enough to show the world I am worth it

My talents, my beauty, intelligence, creativity

Most importantly my love for the human kind

No matter their religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, shape or size

I am a product.

Born in the city of Baltimore, brought up by a village

Loved by so many for reasons I have yet to understand

My past a road block I thought kept me sheltered

But won’t allow self-acceptance to get in

I am fighting with my shadow, loathing my reflection

I tango with the Devil and twerk to Rhianna, pop lock and drop it

I am a product.

Of a future close enough for me to grasp

It’s not a dream it is reality that I can be whatever I want to be

If I stopped letting anxiety and pain get the best of me

It’s right there Kim, it’s right there you just have to reach

Tangled up in a metaphorical chain

Screaming, crying as I put my fist through the wall

Yank the Christmas light from the ceiling now sitting in the dark

I rock back and forth

I am a product.

Hey girl, I see you trying to disappear

Sinking like the Titanic, holding on to whatever you can

You don’t really want to die. You are just hurting it’s okay

Let it out, cry.

Stop it now! Back away from the toilet, no more jumping jacks

He didn’t rape you due to size

That’s on him girl, I know you tried to fight

And although you continue to starve in attempt to rid imaginary filth

Baby girl I still see you.

I am a product.

“All my life I had to fight” a different shade than the color purple

Demons oh demons telling me I am the nothing but my past

As a vicious cycle of memories on repeat

Girls scream, your nothing but a slut as they throw pens at me

I sit there seemingly un-phased

Wondering when there will be better days

I shrink into my chair until I can’t take it anymore

Run out of the classroom and make my way to the corner

Light it up, cancer stick lucky number 7

Security guard asks “what are you doing?”

I reply “securing my lungs a spot in heaven”

I am a product.

Once a gymnast always a gymnast

My life is upside down and I’m proud cause not everyone

Not everyone can rely on their hands to carry them through

I am strong like bull, built like my mother, wise from appreciated knowledge

No thanks to college

I am a product.

Always fighting with myself as if I am the enemy

Nothing I do is good enough, that’s what I tell myself

But look at me now, published author, loving mother

To a cat

Adulting on a whole nother level

Like I said I am fighting with the devil

As I am blinded by fear, fear of failing at something

I haven’t even tried

Like living life in recovery and accepting my size

Loving what my body can do for me, such hate towards my thighs

When they are simply a reminder every time they rub together

That I am alive

I am a product

Of God’s creation, everything about me designed within His favor

A little quirky, outspoken, loud, funny, wise, thinking outside the box

Standing up for what I believe in, even if I am the only one

I have nothing to lose but so much to gain

I’ll repeat again and again

I am a product of God’s creation

And if I really loved Jesus the way I say I do

I wouldn’t harm myself in so many way

But I could love myself more too

Because I am also a product of however I choose to shape my life

And oh boy am I going to conquer!

©Kim Edwards

More than Just statistics

Many people will post a status, a blog, or a journal entry telling you they wear purple “because…” and then post a bunch of facts, but I will not. I choose to be open and tell you that I wear purple, because I have struggled with an eating disorder for all of 5 years. Knowing someone personally that is affected by a statistic means more to me than just a number and that is exactly what I am, more than a number. I am a human being, a friend, a daughter, a sister, an employee, a cat mom and to many people I am a good laugh. But for the last few years I ignored the important roles I play in the lives of others to be the victim of one of the deadliest diseases. My eating disorder gave me a way out. A way out of responsibilities, feelings and flashbacks. It gave me a feeling that I was superhuman by being able to live a productive life without nourishment. I believed for years that I was able to see results from working so hard. I was accomplishing something every day I lost an ounce. But with all of this, I also believed I deserved every bit of torture brought on by myself because I didn’t deserve anything more.

It started with a diet, typical for many whom are victims of anorexia or bulimia. I dieted in attempt to erase the memories of numerous sexual traumas that I could not for the sake of me stop reliving. For year’s I stood over a toilet and purged and after I would go for a run. It was a constant battle of questioning whether I had earned the next meal only to remind myself, I ran that far and purged that food because I was going to be skinny and in the larger scheme of things invisible, hopefully. Finally, I began just skipping meals all together and then purging on the days I did eat. I felt like I was always losing, but in a sick twisted way I was also winning. My weight was down and I was accepted into treatment because I was sick. Finally, I was doing so well at doing so bad, but let me re-iterate I was doing so well! Treatment was like a gold fucking medal! My EKG showed that my heart rate was slow and unlike a normal person I was proud of this news. Even though I was slowly dying, I was getting compliments from so many on my weight loss. I had a goal and I didn’t care how it was achieved.

I am writing this story with hopes to reach one person. I don’t have to over achieve, I just have to do my best. I write this because I hope to change the conversation, erase the stigma, and remind people that this is real and it is affecting thousands including me. I figure if you are reading this it’s because you are interested. Good, that too is an accomplishment. I am in recovery, but please don’t mistake that for better or fixed, because I am not. I may not intentionally lose weight, but I’m not at the point in my life where I can eat a sustainable amount of food a human really needs to function. I still freak out at restaurants and family dinners. I don’t believe I deserve nourishment. But finally, although I may not feel I deserve life I do deserve the chance to fight which is a big improvement from last year. I wish for those still struggling I had some advice on how to be able to just eat when you are hungry and without crying. I wish I could help you enjoy food and pick it out according to what you are craving and not by its caloric content. I don’t know how I did it, I just know I did. Treatments, groups, support systems etc.…all that played a small role in my recovery, but I did most of the work. A very good friend of mine once told me “you will keep doing what works for you, until it no longer works for you, and then you will find something else” and she was right. I found my cat, and he is what works for me now. He may not be there for me in the same way as humans are, but in an unspoken way he is singing to me and I am singing to myself my new favorite song by Rachael Platten:

“Hands, put your empty hands in mine

 And scars, show me all the scars you hide

 And hey, if your wings are broken

 Please take mine so yours can open too

 'Cause I'm gonna stand by you

Even if we're breaking down, we can find a way to break through

 Even if we can't find heaven, I'll walk through hell with you

Love, you're not alone, 'cause I'm gonna stand by you”

Besides Colton, I too have become my new best friend in life. “No one can love you the way you can love yourself” is a true statement. I’m learning to love me. And for those of you needing someone to love you until you can love yourself these lyrics are meant for you as well. I may not know you, but I’ll stand by you because that’s what humans do, not statistics.

©Kim Edwards

April 17, 2016

These are my Pieces

These are my pieces, they don’t quite align

Some of them his, some of them mine

“mommy I have to tell you something

Please don’t be mad.

The boy, he removed all my clothes

Yes mom, even my pants”

Memories and words my mom then said next

Got lost with the memories I somehow suppressed

The things I should have heard, up until this here day

Along with affection got long swept away

It was not at all purposeful, she did try her best

But according to stat’s the chances are less

That an event much like this wouldn’t occur again in my life

That I’d somehow attract more men that walked by

These are my pieces, they don’t quite align

Some of them his, some of them mine

Already short circuited, the first event I forgot

Until another man’s fingerprints acquired a spot

I no longer accepted the body I owned

My sexual experiences now way overgrown

Convicted, no never, I am serving the sentence

Although it’s ass backwards, I beg for repentance

Because these are my pieces, they somehow got lost

I didn’t fight back, I cried, I gave up

While thoughts flooded my mind, “this must be love”

I detached from the image as he lingered above

But like I said a while before

These are my pieces right here on the floor

And although trauma has caused my thoughts not to align

They will be put back together, it just might take time

Because these pieces

They are

My

Perfectly unperfected

God forsaken pieces.

©Kim Edwards

September 4, 2016

The Stranger I know too Well

His eyes were so unique; I had forgotten we had already been acquainted. He mulled me over inch by inch, I could feel every stitch of my recovery unravel before me. It was almost as if he was only using my brown glass stained eyes to tare apart my soul. Instead of questioning his intentions my curiosity only peeked with a burning desire to like myself again. I glided away with the utmost yet dangerous certainty that I was stronger than my eating disorder and I could just as easily leave it behind.  But already I had fallen into the depths of his wandering hateful eyes. As soon as I gave him a second glance he had trapped me. I allowed myself to think it was just a ghost of an extremely intolerable past, but he was everywhere, he was everything, he was all I had because no one else could truly understand me, the way that he did.

It was nothing but a dream

It was merely just a chance

To believe I had a chance at love    

My second wedding dance

It was simply just a crack

A patch of life that’s rough

I brushed it off I forgave it

And then I got back up

But a different person for I had broke

And I did not know that I had

I had fallen again into my disorders embrace

It was merely just by chance

My eating disorder had caught me off guard just like every therapist and eating disorder treatment had told me it would. “As soon as you become comfortable and you stop following meal plans” or “it’s when you decide to be spontaneous that your eating disorder will surprise you”. I was the narcissistic son of a bitch that thought I was stronger than my disease, no thanks to the overpowering second half of my DNA, I hate to say it, but gosh damn it the therapist were right and all my dreams had left. That is such black and white thinking, I know, but really sometimes enough is enough and it just seems safer to give up on dreams to follow the one you initially started with, lose a few pounds. Just a couple pounds, enough to fit into those old jeans; why spend extra money on new clothes when you have perfectly good old ones. This is what my dad refers to as being Froogle. I thought to myself just a couple inches off the sides so my skin doesn’t feel bunched up when I roll over at night. Just enough weight so that when I am rushing through the store I can easily weave through the crowds like an airy ballet dancer. I refer to this as artistic precision. Really though, it ain’t no skin off my back, just muscle or is it? Perhaps its everything. Yea its everything because it is NEVER just enough!

God carefully sewed together this imperfect masterpiece that is me. Somewhere below the skin, muscle, cartilage, bone, underneath every inch of every microscopic fiber that is made so simply yet individualistically there is a girl who doesn’t give a fuck what she looks like. I so desperately hope to find her. I knew my eating disorder thoughts were so irrational for a while until I fell into its loop and somehow was able to rationalize everything. It started with me writing my food down in a journal to make sure I was eating enough only to realize I was unsure and embarrassed for caring about myself. That was followed by a bad day that ended with my disease reminding me it was right there to hold my hand and guide me down the old wood floor that erratically splinters as it guides you to the John or Lou. I am standing in front of the toilet and I don’t even have to fight the urge because images of my damaged body are cascading into the recycled water. I throw up on them and think Fuck you! I flush, and as I walk out the door I cry with shame. In my mind, I now hear “yes fuck us, we’re fucked!”

Hi Kim I missed you

I’m so glad you let me in

I was hoping for the chance

To dance this dance again

My favorite part is when you thought

You were safe to enjoy your life

As if we hadn’t shared precious moments

As a husband and a wife

I’m glad though, that I can be here for you

So glad you just don’t know

I promise this time I’ll keep you close

Kim, I will never let you go!

©Kim Edwards

Rape Validated My Eating Disorder

My eating disorder did not just come out of nowhere. As much as people would like to think that I simply decided one day that I wanted to be skinny, I’m here to set the record straight as that is certainly not what happened. The hardest part about this disorder is that due to commorbidity there are so many components to it; Depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, OCD, PTSD. I have a need to cope with all of my illnesses and anorexia just seems to be recycled over and over along with a laundry list of other self harm behaviors. People tell me “Stop with this “I’m fat shit, you are not fat and you never will be, but what you are is self - absorbed”. These people do not understand that my desire to be thin is a product of a much greater issue. Thinness represents a sense of invisibility that I can’t seem to accomplish with these curves and long muscular legs. My eating disorder serves me in many ways. One way in which it does is by loving me while certainpeople around me lack understanding and therefore having no desire to support me, not knowing that by doing this they are only validating the thought that caused this disorder in the first place. “I’m unworthy, damaged and it would be easiest for not only me, but everyone else if I just became invisible.”

The thought that I need to be invisible seems to be the most common of themes coming from my mouth in every group. In body- image we discuss why being thin is so important. In Psychotherapy, we discuss why we feel we deserve to damage our bodies in the ways we have been. And during skills groups we talk about other ways to cope with the feelings and my answer and reaction to it all is that I am disgusting, I don’t deserve to eat, or to be seen because of having been raped. By continuing my eating disorder, I am finally taking back control and helping prevent the undeniable attraction that predators have for me. Weight to me signifies the pounds of filth my body has gathered from random strangers, it also causes my curves to dissipate without me having to wear baggy clothes, because of course I want my fellow sisters to approve of my fashion sense and the work that I so carefully put into it.

Throwing up my middle finger and giving men what I thought was the evil eye proved to be of no deterrent as most of them either got angry and hurt me with their words or threatened me. Now every time I think I have the courage to stand up for myself I shrink back into the same headspace I was in when I was raped saying to myself “I am no good, just give up the fight”. The last man I trusted took notice of the scars on my arms, he asked me why I would do that to myself. I explained to him that I had been hurt in the past and fed the idea during both my childhood and adulthood that by men I was not worth anything. This message was a result of outrageous actions men took against my body, and all without permission or acceptance. I thought he understood and perhaps even had some empathy, you know, because he was my friend. Just as soon as I crawled over him facing the window to go to sleep he woke me up with a kiss. I thought to myself, that was fine. I was drunk and impaired and at that moment making out was okay. But we didn’t stay at first base, he actually decided he was going to be MVP and run to 2^nd and 3^rd and I, still unsure if that was what I wanted laid still in consideration of how far this game should go. “Do you have a condom?” he asked. “No, I don’t, but I don’t want to have sex.” As I am writing this now my mind is flooding with memories of things I forgot before when giving my statement. It’s unsettling, knowing that something that happened to your body can be erased in an instant as a means of protection, but yet it backfires because you don’t remember all the details to tell the investigator. For me at least, that’s how it goes down. Anyway, I rolled over to the other side ready to go to sleep when he wrapped his arms around my stomach and chest and attempted to insert his penis inside of me. My roommates were home and just as quickly as he had run to home base, my mind had run to shame and guilt, therefore I refused to scream for help. But for the second time in my life I fought. “Stop” I then shuddered his name in fear “Please stop, I don’t want to have sex!” I cried and he ignored me. All I could do was hold my legs together as tight as possible with hopes he wouldn’t protrude through my almighty barricade. But it hurt, he tore me, not just physically but mentally, I was no longer whole.

That’s when my agoraphobia was at its worst. Struggling with multiple diagnosis already this just magnified each one on a whole new level and nobody could reach me. I was never hungry and I began weighing in every day. It didn't just stop there. I was also cutting my breast and thighs so they would be a turn off to the next man whome ever removed my clothes. Since I was already not eating there was no point in going to the store. Luckily, at the very least I was able to make the walk to my doctors and counselors offices, but that was the extent of my adventures for 3 weeks. I became a hobbit in my own house. I left my room to pee and refill my glass with wine. I drank and slept and drank and slept until there was no more money for alcohol. I was left with seroquil and a tainted bed filled the unbenign memories.

My job seemed to provide me with some relief, well until I purposely overdosed on accident. If that’s not an oxymoron I don’t know what is. What I am saying is I drank a lot and took extra sleeping pills in attempt to knock myself out for the next 18 hours with hopes of escaping flashbacks and such, but ended up actually harming myself in the process and landing in the ICU. Oops. I ended up in the psych ward which was loud and over stimulating. I went from being locked in my bedroom sporadically peeking out the window to make sure he wasn’t there to being locked up with a bunch of other people with mental health issues. I was afraid of everyone. The screaming from other patients caused a chain reaction within myself. First I would freeze where i was, then sit down,  and then curl up in a ball crying and rocking back and forth. The rocking had been a new-found comfort the last few weeks. It was my go to when I became distraught which was not often, but always spontaneous. My friends didn’t understand it and it worried them. To be quite honest it worried me a little as well. How would  I possibly make it in the real world? I mean I couldn’t stay in my room forever. The staff at the hospital continuously told me “you have to eat, it’s part of life” and when I still refused they began using food as a bargaining tool. They obviously didn’t get it, I didn’t believe I deserved food. “So, let me get this straight, you want me to eat something I don’t deserve in order to use the computer which I also don’t deserve?” Funny.

I wasn’t allowed to go home despite not being suicidal. The hospital felt I needed additional support for my eating disorder and although they were right, they could lead a girl to treatment, but you can’t make her eat. Every day after program I would come back to the apartments and purge my food. On the weekends I would work the night shift at hospice and then come home and sleep the day away. Between all of those symptoms I wasn’t gaining any weight. I also was refusing to participate in groups and hiding food whenever I got the chance. No progress was being made because I was far from ready. In my mind, even to this day every bite I take is like fighting with the devil. I am back in treatment and this time all on my accord. At each meal I am taking a step towards a life I don’t believe I deserve, simply because of that tiny whisper in my ear telling me that perhaps when my brain is nourished, I might for once believe that I am enough. For now, I have accepted the idea that I may struggle with all these negative beliefs, but for the sake of faith I will mechanically eat and participate fully on this slow walk to recovery even though each mental illness I suffer from keeps me safe from the world which is always unknown. The rape that occurred only validates the lack of self -worth I already had, but many have told me that it’s up to me to change my thoughts and that I have a choice whether or not to believe them. Much easier said than done. But just a little tip for those reading this, eating disorders are not clear as glass, they go way beneath the surface, and as much as food may be serving a purpose for you, not eating is serving a purpose for someone else. Just chew on it. No pun intended.

©Kimberly Edwards

A journey through my stomach, a road map to my mind

In honor of Eating Disorder awareness week, I am going take you on an educational journey beneath the surface of one of the deadliest mental health illness’s in America. I’m doing this because most people if not everyone is going to write about their eating disorders or someone they know whom has been affected by one, and although each story has benefits of being heard or read, coming to the understanding that this illness is way more than crying over carbs and having panic attacks over mayonnaise is what will be what I think the most beneficial. Eating disorders are just as much a surface problem as any other negative coping skill, but the ways in which it serves people like me is quite riveting. So, yes, I am going to tell you some of my own personal story, but also share some tips of things that you may have never considered could make a person “think thin” or “eat their feelings

Before I begin let me clue you in on a few things. There are many types of eating disorders and eating disorders do not discriminate! They are not just seen in the white culture and men have them too. Just because someone looks “healthy” doesn’t necessarily mean they are. Overweight people can be anorexic, did you know that? Mind blown I know! But it’s true. And long legged, thin woman that according to the BMI chart are underweight are not always so. Body structures are different, BMI is a very unreliable method to measure someone’s weight and believe it or not anyone can have an eating disorder. Yup, even Oprah Winfrey. Eating disorder are to me a reaction or coping method due to 1 or all of 3 things. The first is an attempt to escape emotions. I’m sure you all have seen or even been the person once before who had a bad day and curled up in front of the television eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Now imagine if ice cream or any food in excess was your way of handling all stress? You would be considered to be a binge eater also known as a stress eater. Taking in large quantities of food can bring on a sense of comfort for many. It’s like filling a void, stuffing those emotions so all you feel is full. Where on the other end of the spectrum we have people like myself whom has a natural biochemical reaction to stress that causes my stomach to churn and become tight. Eating only makes it worse. So, when stress becomes routine or my depression or anxiety are uneasily managed, getting in the amount of food necessary for my body to function is quite difficult. But either way, whichever person you are, the stress, the depression, and anxiety all need to be dealt with in other ways or better managed because eating too much or eating too little is never good.

Secondly, there are the people whom feel they need control. Mind you there are many reasons people might want this, but in my case, it’s due to the fact that when I was raped therefore I had no control. As much as I fought there was absolutely nothing I can do and as far as the case I am trying to purse against my predator, all I can do is sit and wait for DNA results to come back and hope that justice is served. What is one to do when their temple, the one thing they thought they owned has been violated? Well for many they turn to becoming over sexualized, drinking, drugging, overeating, not eating or any of many PTSD responses. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many people I’ve come across whose eating disorders were a means to escape the feelings of shame and guilt from an assault that wasn’t their fault. The desire to crawl out of my skin is there, but so very impossible so instead I try my best to become invisible. Each pound I lose is like a pound of dirt and extreme self-hatred. I struggle even more than I did before to venture out in public, go to new places, meet new people and ride public transportation. All I want to do is hide even if it means shrinking myself down to an unhealthy size. Not all people with eating disorders have been through a traumatic experience though. That doesn’t mean though the need for control isn’t fueled by something else. It’s almost a given that a person suffering from an eating disorder is also a perfectionist. Sometimes when things in our lives are disorganized and scattered we attempt to focus our attention and energy on that one thing we can control and for many that is food. We can control how much goes in, perhaps how much comes out, how much we burn, how little we can weigh and so much more. It can easily become an obsession. Focusing on areas of the body we are most uncomfortable with and doing what we can to change it gives us an undeniable sense of accomplishment and sense of discipline. This is the eating disorder part, but as I mentioned before the eating disorder is secondary, it is indeed a reaction to not having control.

The third thing that I believe is perhaps one of the most common causes of eating disorders especially in children and teens is the awful way in which food is portrayed. Some of it stems from media, but you would be surprised how the things we talk about together in the company of others especially children have led to their eating disorders. They watch what we do and listen to what we say, even if it is not aimed towards them. Simply labeling food as good or bad, healthy or junk, and that desert is reward can really screw with how children perceive food. All types of food are perfectly acceptable in moderation. It’s not good or bad, it’s just food. So just a helpful tip, when you are sitting at the table removing the bun from your burger, ordering just a salad, leaving out the dressing and skipping desert because “I don’t need the extra calories”, children are taking that in and then later following in your footsteps. I know it sounds crazy perhaps and even a little over dramatic, but we need food to live and our bodies need a little bit of everything on the pyramid carbs and fats included.

Earlier I mentioned that labeling food can be very detrimental and now I would like to provide to you and example. When I was a teenager, my mom struggled to find ways to punish me because I really didn’t respond the way she wanted. Nothing really bothered me. I was too depressed to care about TV, I didn’t have any friends and there was no where I wanted to go except for to bed. I recall though a time when I asked for some of my brothers swiss rolls as I was craving some desert and she had stopped buying it for me because I was on punishment. Her response to me was “children who misbehave don’t get desert or special snacks, if you want desert you need to figure out how to buy it yourself.” At that moment desert to me had been labeled a reward, something given only to people whom deserved it. And although I had better days and tried my best to behave I couldn’t help but think I was a terrible teen. I did eventually start buying my own desert but I felt such shame knowing I didn’t deserve it according to her, that I would always eat it in my room and hide the evidence. At one point I even ran out of my own and stole some of her candy. I hid the wrappers before she got home and then stood over the toilet bowl trying to puke it up. That was the first time I purged. It's also when my eating disorder really started. At school I craved ice cream and treats since I couldn’t get them at home and began buying that for lunch each day. Well until my mother found out. She then put a block on my account because she wasn’t going to pay for me to eat crap. Her and my relationship was so tumultuous that I would come home every day and head to my room without dinner. Sitting at the table watching her and my brother interact and completely ignore me was so uncomfortable. I didn’t deserve their company, their food, just being in their presence, because I was the misbehaved child. Mind you I did raise a lot of hell in high-school, but my depression was so bad and when I attempted to get the attention and love I needed for it, I was made fun of. In reaction to it I became very angry which is typically a secondary reaction to hurt and for 4 years was misinterpreted as Oppositional defiance disorder. Anyway because of my depression I didn’t have any friends. People knew I cut myself so I also earned the label of crazy. I started ordering a bagel at lunch and putting it in my back pack for when I got home and went to my room. My eating disorder in high school was very on and off I suppose, but it came back when I turned 22. I have been in recovery and out of recovery numerous times. But still, even as an adult I am influenced by the way those around me relate to food. Watching my mother skip the bun and comment on my choice to have a donut for breakfast is really difficult.  I’m not telling you this though to make her sound like a bad person, even she doesn’t understand the affect her words and actions have on me. I see other parents do it too and it breaks my heart because their misguided thoughts on lipids and carbs and their unhealthy relationship with food is affecting their children and half of them don’t even know it. But if you are reading this, now you do. Please take into consideration how you interact with the food on your plate and if you have the guts to do so perhaps try eating intuitively. Your body is smart, it knows what it wants. It craves things for a reason. Listen to it. The more you ignore it, the more damage you do. Scary but true fact that I will leave you with; People who ignore their cravings are more likely to later binge on that desired item. If you really fear that the desert you want is so unhealthy (which it’s not as it is carbs, lipids which are what your body needs) then perhaps America we shouldn’t just run on dunking, we should run to it as well.

©Kim Edwards

February 25, 2017

I vow to you

On this day, I vow to you

To love, to care, and cherish too

Because this job is mine to do

With everything in me I’ll follow through

How? you ask after all this time

Shall I change my ways, and care for Kim

I don’t quite have an answer per say

Just a tiny voice from within

Which says to you, to me, to us

This long list of vows, let’s trust and Jump…

I vow to always love you, on the good days and the bad

If simply for the fact that I’m the only one you have

I vow to see through the rays of sun as blind as I may be

To see beyond what I thought was damaged, the one and only me

I vow to catch the rain drops for I will never let you drown

Although I cannot always stop the fall you’ll never remain curled up on the ground

I’ll pick you up and dust you off and tell you it’s okay

And if you find you’re feeling stuck I’ll help you find another way

I vow to speak more kindly and to stop the thoughts that starve

A precious life belonging to you which indeed you do deserve

I vow to keep the razor blades away from your dainty wrist

And if you feel you cannot fight the urge I’ll calmly tell you this

“It’s simply an emotion, a thought that disappears

And although it may hurt right now, please let me catch your tears”

I vow to never judge you for your imperfections or mistakes

Because like God I will love you just how you were made

I vow to make you take a break when stress starts rear its head

I will no longer allow you to spend bad days balled up in your bed

I vow to remind you every day that it was not your fault

And I’m sorry for what he did to you, that thoughtless misogynistic fuck

I vow to try and stop the images racing ramped through your head

Including the ones that tell you, that you’d be better off now dead

I vow to remind you it’s okay to set boundaries and you should not feel ashamed

And if others take offense to it they have only themselves to truly blame

It’s not your job to take care of the world although you wish you could

I admire you Kim for how much you give back in laughter and in love

I vow to not allow you to stick your fingers down your throat

Despite you wanting to be invisible you deserve to be seen on earth

I vow to never take for granted all the ways in which you are blessed

And take a look back at each God given moment knowing you tried your best

I vow to love you when you are weak and love you when you’re strong

And I vow to tell you because it’s true “Kim you do belong”

With every fiber of my being I will help you find your way

I will help you find from deep within a hidden but true strength

I vow to you, I indeed here pledge to let your voice be heard

And without anorexia I’ll allow you freedom like the flightiest of birds

I vow to protect and always to serve the child and adult within

I will fill that void for you, where your parents should have been

I vow to be patient while you accept yourself the way this poem has

I vow to do the work it takes to make it always last

In sickness and health, until death do us part

These are the words I speak from my heart

Be patient and kind we will make it through

These are some of the vows that I make to you

Will you accept me?

©Kim Edwards

February 9, 2017