There are six different paths you can pace,
I figured them out the day I arrived.
Every single girl here paces too.
How else can we preserve our headspace
in such a place?
On my first week I walked out of the dining room.
Past the courtyard, lined with neatly trimmed hedges
and into the carpark, where I assumed
the nurses could not find me
pacing amongst lurid pink banksias
Which oozed sickly sweet sap
that I would never consume.
There were two others walking when I arrived,
restless as I was
Desperate to remove what they despised.
Of the six paths, one is metaphorical.
Where growth can only be brought on by rest,
which to us is death.
Since for this, you must feel
rather than pluck the weeds we try to repress
During the second week, we took a path which winds
around the hospital
past a community garden
with an assortment of vegetables,
planted in nutrient-rich soil
that nourished their growth little by little.
By mistake, the therapist took us the long way around.
My desire to go again made me think I was brittle.
My mind began to wander
‘Hide the food in your pockets’, my mind chanted.
‘When you are discharged you can go back.’
Thoughts sowed by a brain that is screaming to be thinner
The path to recovery is by far the longest.
You cannot pace down this route
because when you pace, there is no destination.
And I imagine that to reach the end,
you must allow growth to take root
and not control where it grows.
By the third week, I grew tired of pacing,
yet my mind was still restless.
Maybe I could channel that energy into soothing water
for a plant burnt by the sun
Trimmed to be perfect.
Nurtured just for show.
I am still walking the metaphorical path,
hearing echoes that reverb endlessly.
Sometimes, they beckon me to veer left
take the path toward counterfeit salvation.
But safety cannot be found in starvation.
Like the sharp sting on my palms from gripping a deep red rose,
whose petals hide a stem of thorns.
There are moments
that grow between cracks in the pavement.
Where I forget the need to pace.
When I remember that I am not too colossal to be loved.
And that there are paths towards affection
which don’t require you to be pruned.
When my psychiatrist is running late,
I like to visit the veggie garden
to see how the ruby-red tomatoes gleam,
And how the bushy-tailed ends of carrots peek out from the soil
And I can stay still, watching and breathing.
Existing.
Growing amongst all this space.
