I am a girl lost in a sea of tangled thoughts, I want to get out of my head,
There’s a voice there that nags and scorns,
That niggles at the back of my brain like an ever-present itch,
Unreachable,
Always returning.
I named her Moaning Myrtle,
Because she is relentless as a ghost,
She haunts my brain,
And plagues my head, filling it with her unyielding howling,
Incessant whinging and warning and whining.
I’ve learned to acknowledge her as something different,
Something other,
Someone else inside my head,
And this helps,
Until I become too exhausted to fight.
Myrtle is there always,
She is there when I eat,
Telling me I am going to put on three stone if I consume anything outside of my usual diet,
She is there when I don’t eat,
Telling me that I am going to starve,
She is there in the morning rushing me out of bed, Telling me I am missing the day, She is there when I am reading, Telling me I should be writing, She is there when I am writing, Telling me I should be reading, She is there on payday,
Telling me I cannot afford to spend a penny because I will become homeless, She is there when I get no answer on the phone, Telling me everyone I know is dead,
She is there in every single action I take,
Throughout any day,
Telling me I am bad,
I am worthless,
I am a terrible, horrible, depraved human being.
I drown her out with pills,
Little white circles the doctor hands me a green slip for each month,
And that dulls her enough that I can pretend she doesn’t exist,
For a little while,
But she always, always, resurfaces,
To tell me I am bad,
I am fat,
I am glutenous,
And selfish,
And greedy,
And doing everything,
Everything wrong.
