Channa Goldman

"​My name is Channa Goldman, and I am a 19 year old writer from Upstate New York.
My work has appeared in Rookie Mag, Teen Ink, and Grlmag.com. 

With Setina's, six words are circulated throughout the piece in a different manner, all appearing at new points within the stanza's each time. This piece is a confession and declaration of autonomy and self-examination in the face of an eating disorder. I felt a Sestina understands the repetitive cycle that follows the pain felt from someone suffering from ED, and I wanted to use it for the purpose of emulating how much of an inescapable "repetition" this kind of a suffering is. Although so it seems so promising that the toxic thought process   repeats itself throughout the course of the day, towards the end, I express hope towards the strength of all individuals such as myself in overcoming these battles. I also express rejection in the face of my disorder ,and to all of the people suffering with their own difficulties, I hope all of our lives can do the same."

​​Instagram: @jewlishious

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(trigger warning) 

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Bulimic Timeline, Nervosa Noise


How many calories is your disorder? Not a lot of praying
Although I am trying, Sidartha
For desire, it is licking at my wounds
And I love the acidic burn that is it’s kissing
But hate the loosing that becomes myself

The moon looks hungry tonight, same phase as myself
All of her passings, all of mine, we are our own disorder
Do you think when I die it will feel like a kind of kissing?
The stopping of my heart, was it worth it when I was praying?
Or did the sky just become another one of my wounds
Or did I forget how to color in the shape of my meanings, and just ask Sidartha?

I think my lover looks like Sidartha
But then again, wanting for reason, desire ridden am I myself
I am still trying not to look like my wounds
Or drown in the bedroom-tangled-chemical-cocktail-the-damnation-the-disorder Does my punctuation cast the intellectuals off praying?
For my own talks with the holy, they taste like first kissing

Oh the opening of my hatred, same vessel used for kissing
Acrostic poem on the empty wrappers spelling out his name: Sidartha Prose like on the toilet bowl, I am writing what you’re praying Words turn into nutritional labels, the percentages of myself
When did I become a maestro with the score of disorder?
Taking back the music, help me eat over those wounds

They are the color of fat cells, each food group, diet dipped wounds
1:00 AM, 2:00 AM, 9:00 AM, timeless is their kissing
Mapped out, sugar coated in loathing: 3 meals a day is the dormitory of disorder I do not even know what it is that I desire, so leave me alone Sidartha
But please, come back and paint me a more perfected portrait of myself
Without short circuiting, give me enough language to word my praying

The choosing of rejection, I will allow it to become my praying
In the face of noise, not just white, leave nothing left like wounds No label left with the nutritional value of myself: value myself Clean plates, empty of all my heavyweights, taking back my kissing In the mirror, I conjure up my own Sidartha
In my older years, I will unmark my skin the hues of disorder

For myself, body kissing
All my praying, it loves over those wounds
Sidartha instructs their gape, I stop counting calories, and my mind forgets the equation for disorder