From Wasted by Marya Hornbacher.
on one level, i wanted very much to get caught. i did not want to get caught to be saved. i wanted to get caught to be seen as something, to have a claim to greatness, to have the sick admiration that comes to those of us who destroy ourselves particularly well. my god! people say. you have so much self control.
and later: my god. you are so, so sick. when people say this, they turn their heads, you’ve won your little game. you have proven your thesis that no-body-loves-me-every-body-hates-me, guess -i’ll-just-eat-worms. you get to sink back into your hospital bed, shrieking with righteous indignation. see? you get to say. i know you’d give up on me. i knew you’d leave.
but then what do you do? what are you worth if no one’s looking? how do you know you’re even there? back to the mirror you go, then, looking for something other than bones, other than the shadow of death at your back. it takes a long time to learn to see.
death is a fascinating thing. the human mind continually returns and returns to death, to mortality, immortality, damnation, salvation. some fear death, some seek it, but it is in our nature to wonder at the limits of human life, at least. when you are sick like this you begin to wonder too much. death is at your shoulder, death is your shadow, your scent, your waking and dreaming companion. you cannot help, when sleep beins to touch your eyes, but think: what if? what if? and in that question, there is a longing, too much like the longing of a young girl in love. the sickness occupies your every thought, breathes like a lover at your ear; the sickness stands at your shoulder in the morror, absorbed with your body, each inch of skin and flesh, and you let it work you over, touch you with rough hands that thrill.
nothing will ever be so close to you again. you will never find a lover so careful, so attentive, so unconditionally present and concerned with only you.
