Sapphic Voices General Fiction

A Fork And A Life

I avoided starting this one.

I avoided starting this one.

Because I don’t really want to write it. About pain and guilt and shame.

Because avoidance helps. Helps prevent the pain of retching the nail out of the spirit. Because it does damage in there. And it can be fatal.

But it hurts coming out. It hurts so much that it often is just better left in. Left in until you’re strong enough for that kind of pain.

So I am avoiding this writing. The one that will pull the nail another millimeter out of the inside of me.

I wish they could knock me out and do it. Like most other surgeries. Knock me out and get that shit the hell out. And I would wake up and be sore but it would be done. All at once and relatively painless. And then I could heal.

But it doesn’t work that way. You can’t knock out an injured spirit. Not if you want to save it.

So every pull – every slight tug – leaves it creaking and grating and rubbing and grinding against itself.

So I’m done writing this one. Because I don’t have time to bleed.

I weighed myself last week at the gym. And I had not done that for quite some time and I begged myself not to. Because it’s irrelevant really.

And it was nighttime and my stomach was relatively full with food and bloated with water and I did it anyway. And I had gained 5 pounds.

And I probably hadn’t really and it was probably the water and the food and the nighttime and my brain knows that but my spirit doesn’t.

And it’s not like before. Where that would have made me stop eating. Where I would somehow unconsciously will myself into virtual starvation. Watch food in front of me grow fangs and bristles. Feel it strip me of life and power as it moved through my body.

It’s not like before. When it hurt to see it or to eat it.

Not like that.

Now it looks like guilt. And shame. Guilt for feeling hungry. For allowing myself to feel hungry. For enjoying it. Shame for losing that piece of me – that sickness- that stopped it. That was strong enough to control it.

And it’s crazy. And it’s crazy making. To think like that. To think that I was better when I was sick. That I was stronger when I was sick. That I had more power when really I had none at all.

And I guess that’s the nature of addiction. That it robs you of your rationality. That your brain takes over your body and your spirit and suddenly you don’t know where one stops and another begins. And they’re all conspiring and maneuvering for control.

And I sound even crazier than I thought. Than I meant to. And that’s never a good thing.

And as I write I can feel the whole milk yogurt and grapes and non-low-fat granola churning away in the acid of my stomach and it’s shame and guilt that are digesting it. And I felt fine eating it. Rushed but fine. And then as I sat and thought and wrote I regretted it. Letting it penetrate me. Letting it inside. Relinquishing control.


“Wiggly hand things,” she called them. Not fingers. Wiggly hand things.

“A fork and a…a…a…”

“Yes a fork and what else?” I asked. “What is there with the fork?”

“A life!” she shouts.

“Knnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnife,” I respond.

“A fork and a knife” they recite. “A fork and a knife.”

Unlike in the French vie or the Spanish vida, English has so few words that rhyme with life. Knife, wife, fife, strife. A fork and a life.

I thought I was done writing about that. About a fork and a life. Some things just won’t relent.

If you have enjoyed Lani Radack's "A Fork And A Life", then please be certain to e-mail her at  radacklani[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Lani Radack's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.

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