Scabrous; talons, fangs and prongs
Beautiful, fabled though it were not
Colossal, it was that which i wish hadn’t espied
Mutinous, cunning, sardonic and free; not me, not freed
Tenanted in the deeper pits of my being
Muddled, only I could hear its hiss
Clawed into my bones, forked into my flesh
Creeped further; my defenses stripped bare
Guzzled until I was threadbare; slinked up my spine
Coiled around the vertebrae, eroded my joints
Licked up a meter, tasted the salt
A crackle would resound, I’d been sure
Took and took until my stores depleted
The green beneath my skin would be punctured next
Sucked the red and all that it held
When I paled, all around me beheld
And just when all had been gobbled and I’d been allowed to rest
It would slither up and tug at my chest
A claw hooked into a lung each, my breath was in its tusks’ reach
Curled around a rib, I’d anticipate talons ripping at my heart’s seams
Anushree Lad
Through this poem, Anushree hopes to convey the horrors of living with an eating disorder, its unflinching hold on her and how others view her. The crippling fear of being jeopardised, feeling helpless and inadequate has marred her self-image. It has shrunk her into a droplet of water deluged by the existence of a dragon (the eating disorder being written about here) whose immensity she has made up in the poem.