11:12 a.m. - 07/09/03
:>all I want of living is to keep you close to me.>
Write and then call. Write and then call. That's the only option anymore; it's not as if I feel safe now, so forget caution. Forget the risk. I don't feel ok as is, so what do I care if it will hurt me more? All I want now is to know what Sara knows. That they haven't forgotten me. That they do love me. That they are home. All I want now is to have that knowing, too.
Call, and when they ask who it is say, Mary. Mary. Girl of a thousand transformations. Sick turned healthy turned powerful turned human turned herself. Girl of a thousand strengths. Hurt turned struggling turned trying turned progressing turned cruising turned pausing turned healed. Healing. Say Mary and let them know me. I shared a room with Dixie, then with Tracy. I looked so scared you didn't think I'd stay. I changed more than anyone you'd ever known. I came into myself; I called you home. I left without ever wanting to. I tried everything I could think of not to leave, but I was still discharged, and you were still there to hold me that last night and to hug me goodbye. You were still there to say no goodbyes, to call it my "appreciation group" when the time came, to do everything and anything so that I could know I wasn't leaving. So I could balance the fact that I was leaving with the raw hope that I never would.
And when they ask how I am doing say, not well. Say in general, progressing and kicking up dust as I climb over mountains, and shouting out echoes into the wind. In general, talking the trees into bending me a path no one can find later, so it looks like I'm walking through thicket without the slightest aid. In general, I'm doing well because I'm doing everything you knew me to do with (almost) two-months-less-than two-years-extra practice. But right now, I'm not well. That "home" we pretended I have, that "home" that you knew wasn't real, is crumbling even more, even more, around me, and I try to stay strong, but I had you. I had you, and I can't live in nothing having had the best. And Sara's with you; Gods bless her, she's being so sweet, trying to share it all with me. But she can't give me what it's like to wake up in those rooms in the morning, to walk into the hallway and tell you good morning. She can't give me what it's like to know I'll see you in a couple days. Tomorrow or the next day or this weekend; she can't give me that. She would. I know she would; she loves me, but she cannot give me you.
I'm doing "well" by the standards at which I was discharged, yes. I'm doing well in terms of my ability to eat, my desire to recover, my ability to maintain my own recovery in spite of (several torrential) outside forces. But any "home" I had here is being exposed for what it really is. I'm being exposed more and more for what I told you, outright, several thousand times. I am yours. I can't leave. I am yours. You are my home. I've never had anything this good, and I can't give it up, and I miss you, and why don't you miss me back? Why don't you write me, call me, glimpse me? This time you have the power to lessen the number of tears I have to cry, so why don't you? Why don't you hold me now that I've asked you to? Why don't you heal me a little, now that you finally can?
I would walk through brambles and tunnel through mountains to hold your hand, and all I'm asking is a letter, a phone call, an e-mail. Tell me how that is too hard... ?
chord
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