JP Seabright
cw: eating disorder/self-starvation
Nineteen
she likes the tremble and buzz
of semi-starvation
the shaky hands and the technicolour
of heightened sensation
life starts to lose its flavour
tea toast and toothpaste
taste strangely of dirty metal
her hip bones become jutting peaks
that echo the curve of her breasts
rings no longer fit fingers
even her feet have shrunk
she doesn’t need to step on the scales
she faints frequently
with reassuring nausea
and shivers despite the heat
but the dizziness is a friend
something certain she can rely on
a sensation she can predict
an experience she can control
Nineteen was first published in the Chapbook Anthology My Mother Threw Knives, Second Light Publications, 2006
Body of Work
I am reading.
Voraciously. Ferociously. With careless disregard for starting one book and finishing
another. Or finishing at all. It is liberating to start something and leave it hanging. Pages
unturned, unread, unlearned. It feels wrong, disrespectful somehow, for hours toiled and
sweat spent. But I am unapologetic. I am scanning, searching, looking for clues. Finding my
cue. Where do I come in? When is it my turn? How can I make my dent? On this body of
work. My body of work. My hard-worn, muscle-torn, un-blessed body of hurt.
Sentences collide, chase each other’s tails and collapse upon another like rutting
lovers. Heave-ho, mind how you go. Mind your racks, paperbacks. I caress spines, invent
bylines and bios and sycophantic blurb. Yet I am. What’s the word? Dyspeptic. I have been
chewing on these fictions for too long. I am bloated with paragraphs and characters. I need to
spit them out, start again. Detox myself. Get back to basics. Back to black on white. Lines
written in darkness upon my body. I awake to a new chapter each morning light.
This body of words woos and wounds me. Hurts and heals in equal measure.
Summons pain and pleasure. Conjures treasures from the deep, and a prick of struggle and
strain. When all is said, blood is spilt, and sheets are stained. When all is written out, laid
bare, unhidden, exposed. Unbidden maybe. Unburdening undoubtedly. Unhitching the words
that I carry with me. Lying dusty in the bottom of pockets. Waiting silently to see the light. To
breathe the air again. Let loose. Be set free.
And me with them.
I am breathing.
This body of work, my body at work, is a constant fluxing, fucking movable feast.
I hunger for the taste of my own flesh, the meagre meat on my bones. I want to carve it into
shape, into a new dimension, into apparition. I need to feel real and corporeal, invisible and
translucent, present and omnipotent all at once. I write myself into being. Into breathing.
These words conjure worlds as they conjugate myself. My Self. Id, Ego and in-between. I am
all between. I am work in progress. I am body at work. This body of words.
JP Seabright likes making stuff up and writing it down. Even their name is made up. They are a persona, a prototype, a work in progress, oscillating wildly between one thing and another. All this can be very tiring, so you will often find them lying down, or wishing they could, if only chronic pain and insomnia allowed. If you insist, more of their work can be found on their website and random ramblings on Twitter @errormessage