Deathwish 057: Danni


“the time before I knew things could go so wrong”

 

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When I woke up in the hospital bed and found myself covered in vomit, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Vomiting had never really been my thing. I had always preferred to just not eat. My ticket into the hospital that evening was acute alcohol intoxication. Thankfully for me, they didn’t have to pump my stomach. I just threw up all over everything instead.

I hadn’t eaten in three days and wasn’t planning on eating for the next four. I was going to starve myself for an entire week. No food at all, instead of the usual 700 calories a day I had been allowing myself that summer. I felt my weight loss wasn’t occurring quickly enough for my liking.

How do you reply when someone tells you that you could have died? Do you apologize? No, that sounds like you are saying sorry for not dying, and that’s just morbid.

The nurse had short brown hair and she gave me two yellow pills for my potassium levels. I thought the potassium pills must be yellow to match bananas.

I wished I could go back to the time in my life when I didn’t know what it was like to feel like anyone other than myself. I wanted to go back to the time before I knew things could go so wrong.

It was a comfortable kind of pain that summer. I knew what was wrong with me, but did nothing to stop it. The ability to chose not to change, was more control than I had ever had before.

Laying in that hospital bed, I knew two things:

  1. I felt alive. I also knew the price I had to pay to feel that way was too high.

  2. I was fucking hungry.

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To read the previous installment, “Deathwish 056: Jake”, go here. To participate in Deathwish, find details here.

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Danni was born in Colonie, NY and currently lives in Colonie, NY.


Matty Byloos

Matty Byloos is Co-Publisher and a Contributing Editor for NAILED. He was born 7 days after his older twin brother, Kevin Byloos. He is the author of 2 books, including the novel in stories, ROPE ('14 SDP), and the collection of short stories, Don't Smell the Floss ('09 Write Bloody Books).

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