My brain is a place of deep concern to me. My brain is a place of butterflies and octopi. You haven’t seen a place such as this and I am so happy for you. You tell me to smile and chock it all up to my negative attitude – that when I text you to say I feel sick, that I am afraid of the coathanger snagging the uterus and bleeding me out, of random murder, of sexual demons, of all the roadkill – you say I think too much. You say maybe we shouldn’t be friends… because when I am this negative, it is upsetting to you.
I’m sorry for this.
I’m sorry I cannot fix my slippery gray cell patina – the smile/slime of a barbie doll on acid; the cool way I snort up the powder of suicide; the way I drink myself to oblivion, decimate my skeleton on the cliff of hopelessness — I fall short. When it comes to being in the world like a good girl — I am terrible at it — bc I am hurt/hurting in my brain, and then, you say, I’m a lot to handle, and you need some time/space away. From me.
I’m sorry for this.
I don’t think I can be normal for you. It’s agony to feel the driveway gravel puncturing my knees as I wait for things to get better — as I beg God to turn me around, let him spank me red/raw, or kiss the toes of his son; (you know I would) — go outside and let the cold burn me – as if it could pasteurize the fetid illness — freeze the chlamydia, the rot, the yellowed liver, brain disease… I imagine you chewing on my sinews… a rabid squirrel; hoarding all the acorns, clogging my limbic system; gnawing the naughty synapse gleaned — all just to make me behave better. I don’t think you have the energy…
I want to be the chickadee who freezes to death on the shimmering pine branch — falls from her perch without ever knowing of death, without ever feeling a damn thing.
And I am so sorry for this.
Photo by Tiago Bandeira on Unsplash
