bar, an apple and two dried apricots. I’d sprinkle the whole lot with breakfast cereal and a squeeze of honey.
This second foster-family had a breakfast bar. I would squat down behind it in the corner where nobody could see. The telephone cord dangled just above me. I’d sit in the dark and eat my plate of little deliciouses with my fingers, delicately feeling for each morsel and placing it in my mouth – just holding it there and running my tongue over it, feeling its texture and temperature.
Afterwards I would quietly wash up the platter and put it back in the cupboard. I’d go to the bathroom and kneel before the bowl. I haven’t made myself vomit yet, but I always think about it. I’ve heard other girls say that the stomach acids coming up all the time rot your teeth. I like my teeth. Besides, if I stick my fingers down my throat or buy laxatives then I will have the sort of ‘challenge’ I’ve promised my counsellor that I’ll talk to her about.
Nobody noticed my bingeing. The foster-mum suspected. I could tell by the way she looked at me. She didn’t like me lurking around the house at night. She thought it was creepy.
I don’t like foster-homes. I prefer to couch-surf.
I’ve never had to sleep on the street. I’ve worried about it, though. The school counsellor knows. She’s given me a key to the showers at the back of the PE change room. But we never connected, not the way I did with my court-appointed counsellor.
I knew why. One of the first times I was waiting in the school counsellor’s office I had Mellinda’s iPod. When she came in she asked me what I was listening to. It was Billie Holiday. She gave me an indulgent smile as though she owned Billie Holiday and I was just borrowing her. Now I can’t listen to Billie Holiday without thinking about it and I hate her for stealing Billie Holiday from me. So when she asks me questions, I lie or deflect. Sometimes I cave and need her, and then she pretends to misunderstand and gives me careers advice to pay me back.
Sometimes the Home Ec. assistant, Sally, lets me wash my clothes in the machine that is used for the teatowels and dishcloths from the school kitchens. Sally is discreet, which I appreciate, but she doesn’t want to hear about my life. If I start to tell her things she fidgets and turns her back, pretending to be busy.
Mostly I couch-surf, but a couple of times last winter I caught a train to Mount Victoria and then back again. All the way from Strathfield to Emu Plains I looked into people’s back yards. It was like seeing the houses in their underwear – people in slippers bringing in their washing, kids on tricycles and swing sets, cockatiels in cages, unsorted recycling, unmown lawns.
As the train jolted past Pendle Hill station there was a lady on the top floor of an apartment block wearing lycra and doing aerobics along with the television. I saw a man in Lidcombe walking around his house in socks, with his pants unzipped, and another man in Schofields breaking up large trays of seedlings in his greenhouse.
I imagined the front of these houses tidy and whipper-snipped, with the curtains drawn in neat, even pleats.
When I see those grey-layered bundles hunkering at the bases of buildings, I can’t help but stare. I wonder where I will go when I run out of boatsheds, couches and long train rides. It fills me with dread and a horrified recognition.
I imagine myself looking out from the crazy, dirty face of the old woman with stringy tendrils of hair whipping around her neck. Is she really as old as she looks? Where did her story begin?
What would a homeless person do if they were agoraphobic? What if you had to sleep in a park and you were arachnophobic?
Can you only afford to have a phobia if you have a home?
You could get a pet duck. Ducks eat spiders. I don’t think it would walk on a lead, though. You’d have to carry it.
I wonder what sort of phobias I will discover that I suffer from. Fear of cold. Fear of
This second foster-family had a breakfast bar. I would squat down behind it in the corner where nobody could see. The telephone cord dangled just above me. I’d sit in the dark and eat my plate of little deliciouses with my fingers, delicately feeling for each morsel and placing it in my mouth – just holding it there and running my tongue over it, feeling its texture and temperature.
Afterwards I would quietly wash up the platter and put it back in the cupboard. I’d go to the bathroom and kneel before the bowl. I haven’t made myself vomit yet, but I always think about it. I’ve heard other girls say that the stomach acids coming up all the time rot your teeth. I like my teeth. Besides, if I stick my fingers down my throat or buy laxatives then I will have the sort of ‘challenge’ I’ve promised my counsellor that I’ll talk to her about.
Nobody noticed my bingeing. The foster-mum suspected. I could tell by the way she looked at me. She didn’t like me lurking around the house at night. She thought it was creepy.
I don’t like foster-homes. I prefer to couch-surf.
I’ve never had to sleep on the street. I’ve worried about it, though. The school counsellor knows. She’s given me a key to the showers at the back of the PE change room. But we never connected, not the way I did with my court-appointed counsellor.
I knew why. One of the first times I was waiting in the school counsellor’s office I had Mellinda’s iPod. When she came in she asked me what I was listening to. It was Billie Holiday. She gave me an indulgent smile as though she owned Billie Holiday and I was just borrowing her. Now I can’t listen to Billie Holiday without thinking about it and I hate her for stealing Billie Holiday from me. So when she asks me questions, I lie or deflect. Sometimes I cave and need her, and then she pretends to misunderstand and gives me careers advice to pay me back.
Sometimes the Home Ec. assistant, Sally, lets me wash my clothes in the machine that is used for the teatowels and dishcloths from the school kitchens. Sally is discreet, which I appreciate, but she doesn’t want to hear about my life. If I start to tell her things she fidgets and turns her back, pretending to be busy.
Mostly I couch-surf, but a couple of times last winter I caught a train to Mount Victoria and then back again. All the way from Strathfield to Emu Plains I looked into people’s back yards. It was like seeing the houses in their underwear – people in slippers bringing in their washing, kids on tricycles and swing sets, cockatiels in cages, unsorted recycling, unmown lawns.
As the train jolted past Pendle Hill station there was a lady on the top floor of an apartment block wearing lycra and doing aerobics along with the television. I saw a man in Lidcombe walking around his house in socks, with his pants unzipped, and another man in Schofields breaking up large trays of seedlings in his greenhouse.
I imagined the front of these houses tidy and whipper-snipped, with the curtains drawn in neat, even pleats.
When I see those grey-layered bundles hunkering at the bases of buildings, I can’t help but stare. I wonder where I will go when I run out of boatsheds, couches and long train rides. It fills me with dread and a horrified recognition.
I imagine myself looking out from the crazy, dirty face of the old woman with stringy tendrils of hair whipping around her neck. Is she really as old as she looks? Where did her story begin?
What would a homeless person do if they were agoraphobic? What if you had to sleep in a park and you were arachnophobic?
Can you only afford to have a phobia if you have a home?
You could get a pet duck. Ducks eat spiders. I don’t think it would walk on a lead, though. You’d have to carry it.
I wonder what sort of phobias I will discover that I suffer from. Fear of cold. Fear of
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