9:50 p.m. - 05/22/03
atlas crumbled.
we kept talking.
and I kept feeling
like I needed to scream
and not doing it.
feeling crazy like
I wanted to kick something,
but I couldn't know what he would
do. so I sat there and
curled my hair with my fingers
curled my arms against my chest
curled my breath into a rhythm
and we kept talking.
he asked why I wasn't scared
today of things that scared me
so much last week. and I said
they're the past. it's easy
to think things don't matter
in the past when things in the
present are bad. I wanted
him to catch that I'm pretending
it doesn't matter at all
just because I felt like it
wouldn't break the world
to break the silence
but I'm not sure he did.
and then.
he started to say something
that sounded like, I'll see
you next week, and I started
to make angry jokes about how
my parents are crazy, and how
my friends are sick, and how
the reason things are hard is because
in my world, I'm the
sane one. I'm the one whose
almost sort of healthy.
me, with my five or six diseases.
my less than two years of recovery.
my eighteen years. my weakness.
and I started crying because
it's not the flurazepam's fault
I'm tired. I'm just
worn out with knowing things
nobody's baby girl should have
to know.
and sometimes I just don't
want to listen. sometimes
even though the story makes
you think of me, I don't want
to confirm it. sometimes
you can keep the details about
your colleague's daughter's ed
or that interview you saw on
dateline to yourself. and
I'll be ok with that. you can
just get your shit together
and remember how to eat your meals
and why you need to,
and when you can't, you can
get help right a right away.
and I'll be ok with not being
expected to save you this time
or not being your confidante
or not empathizing with what
we both know I've felt before.
sometimes it'd be really nice
if I were the sick one, not
because I'm sicker than I am
but because other people are
healthier than me. and it
would be so nice to have people
tend me tenderly tend to me
gently touch me softly safely
guide me home. it would be
so nice, for a weekend, for a
vacation, for a night even
to slip out of this house
into a home.
I'd be ok
if they decided to quit fighting.
if my dad wasn't living with his mom.
if they didn't hang up on each other.
if I could tell jokes without picking sides.
if they kept to themselves the details
of all those poor people they work with.
if I were a kid with friends
and a cap. and a gown.
I could approve all that if anyone
approached me. I think
I would approve all that
if anyone's thinking
it would be good.
it's not the flurazepam's fault
I'm tired.
it's my recovery
and their recovery
and their illness
and their refusal
and their denial
and their stupidity
and their ignorance
and their inability to understand
and how little they want to
and all of the places I've had to leave
just to hold onto myself
and all of the places I've tucked my heart
just to find it missing in the morning
I'm tired because
one year, five months, and a day ago
my roommate died in a hospital bed
from a suicide attempt she tried
to take back but couldn't because
her body was weak from the same
disease that made her think
she wanted those pills
just long enough to take them.
I am tired from
all the heaviness of sadness
when someone has to be cheering us on
we are athletes running cross-decade
marathons, and I want there to be joy
but I'm tired of always giving it.
I'm tired from how hard it is to
keep yourself together when no one
pushes you back into your place with
hugs. the simple chiropractic scheme
of friendship is lost and I miss it.
I miss hugging and holding and not having
to be the one to hold my own weight up.
I want to lean against something
strong enough to take it
and turn my head and see it
isn't a wall.
but mostly
I don't want the serenity prayer
to bring on bouts of madness.
I want to be able to give up control
completely. I want to believe
in someone/ something/ somewhere
that can take it all away
and handle it, and I can be free
of that burden, of that task
I can't complete anyway.
I want to be able to say,
I BELIEVE THAT SHE WILL BE OK
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.
I BELIEVE SHE WILL BE ALIVE
EVEN IF I LOSE HER.
and even as I croak and moan
on the pain of those last words
know they aren't mine.
I want to believe in me,
too. I want to know how much
closer I am to fine.....
chord
(who just likes the enter key
she's not the type to call that poetry)
�
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