“Taxidermy, Pointillism, & Growing into My Skin” | Erin Mullen | Poetry

Taxidermy, Pointillism, and Growing Into My Skin

Erin Mullen

i. just because a taxidermy deer looks lifelike does not mean it was not once a decaying carcass. that deer was lucky to be collected, polished, and maintained. when a once dead body becomes full of new life, it is easy to forget its former state.

ii. during my junior year of high school, one of my teachers asked me what i was doing to look so healthy. this only occurred after i had lost weight. i had fainted in her class once. since recovering from my eating disorder, no one has told me that i look healthy, or asked for weight-loss advice. i still do not know whether that makes me feel overwhelmed with grief, loneliness, or liberation.

iii. is it possible for reincarnation to occur within the same body, in the same lifetime? after a near-death experience, is it the same soul in your body? if i am healthy now, why is my mind incomplete without the screeching voice of my disorder? is my current state anything more than the absence of my sickness?

iv. choosing to recover in a culture that believes the most undesirable thing someone can be is fat is a continuously difficult choice to make. a 2019 study showed that only twentyone percent of patients with anorexia nervosa fully recover within a two-year period. i frequently wonder if i will end up as part of the seventy-nine percent who do not.

v. in the Art Institute of Chicago, there is a famous painting by Georges Seurat called A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. what is remarkable about this painting is that from far away, it looks harmonious, but close-up, it looks like a disjunction of dots. it is easier to look at the most beautiful parts of chaos, even when the truth is unsightly.

vi. i was never told that i should stop trying to lose weight. i was told, during my early recovery, that i should stop trying to gain weight once i reached a certain number. my life has been nothing but numbers for years. isn’t part of the healing journey supposed to be breaking free from that? why is it such a novel concept to lose the desire to quantify my life?

vii. when i was a child, my favorite holiday was halloween. i loved eating candy, feeling the sharp sweetness sting my tongue. now, halloween is my favorite because i am not the only one in disguise.