I’m never ill, unless I force myself to be

You’re out with friends, you go to a bar, buy drinks, pick up a souvenir pack of matches, you don’t smoke but for some reason it comforts you to keep them with you.

You go to the toilets – look for a cigarette machine on the way, you’re craving. There isn’t one.

You go to a club, another drink, find the machine you were looking for, buy a pack – £5.00 – they weren’t this much last time you bought some. That was a while back though.

You find your friends and nervously light the first fag. They know you don’t smoke – it seems strange to you, in a comforting way though and the night follows this pattern.

You leave – you’re craving food. You know you shouldn’t – think of your weight and that there’ll be no opportunity to get rid of it.

Sod it – you buy a pizza to share – ham and pineapple. You wait for it to cook, your stomach is churning, you need the loo.

You walk to the car and eat the pizza, every mouthful a guilty type of heaven. You wonder when you can take some more tablets.

You get in, dump your bag and jacket, go for a glass of water – no, your stomach is chunrning too much – dash for the loo. You shit out what seems like every last drop – drop because you’e shitting out liquid.

You grab a glass of water and go get dressed for bed. Back to the loo again. You sit there for a while – it feels like you’re shitting out your guts. Clutching your stomach you go back to your room – more tablets, you have to get rid of the pizza.

Can’t puke it up – tried that one before. Only three days back you ate breakfast – a poptart and a fat free yogurt and felt so guilty you spent 20 minutes with your fingers down the back of your throat. All you managed was to retch. All you gained was a sore throat. That’s when you bought the tablets.

You don’t manage to get them – you need the loo again – you run downstairs, don’t want anyone to wake up and hear you shitting your liquid guts.

You go back upstairs and take your tablets, crawl into bed clutching your stomach – it hurts, you need to shit but there’s nothing left. Your head’s spinning – thoughts, guilt – won’t slow down. And, you fall asleep.

This was originally written into a notebook, and later placed on Monday Morning Cold on 17 January 2003.