at some point it has to be enough, I am vomiting again and I feel a relief from it, from a certain kind of bloating that surrounds my life, insulates me from living.
I’m vomiting again and it’s ugly with sticky veins of saliva between my mouth and the toilet bowl and it’s a relief because a little bit of pressure is eased, one hand steadying the porcelain and my knees pressing tile and it’s enough to get through the night, enough to want to go about it a little longer, just a bit more, I’m vomiting again to get the edge off my inertia, to get off, to ease the bloat.
I can understand the appeal of defeating my body this way, feeding it, stuffing it, then ripping it out. I can sense the danger in this, I can feel the measure of satisfaction it brings, I can see myself wanting it more. It’s grotesque and wonderful, pathetic and empowering.
I am broken in ways that I can never repair.
And he felt that he was filling up a place other than where he was, as if he was filling up some other aspect of someone he didn’t necessarily want to be, and he was leaking, leaking by dregs, by chunks. He stood over the toilet bowl and carefully, with one hand, teased away the remaining saliva that tethered him to the seat cover. With the other hand he furiously unrolled toilet paper and wiped his face, his shirt -specks of vomit had back splashed- even his hair. Partly anxious and ambivalent, he felt a sense of accomplishment. Something got done tonight, if not his work.