God I'm lonely.

I fight the screaming, the fear, the
embarrassing stupidity.
I don't give in but.
Sometimes it wins.
Sometimes I lose
who am I,
I lose the ability to
form to form to form
sentences and thoughts wi
which don't repeat
the ability to form
the ability to form
sentences which don't repeat
in circles in my head.
Sometimes the little faceless man runs
screaming
in circles
and I
can't look
directly
for fear they
might see him
running
screaming.
I can't open my eyes to them
can't open my mind or soul
in fear they might know that
I'm faking it.

I know they know
anyway.
I know they hear it. I know they talk.
I know they wonder where I went
why I can't hear them
the noise, the noise in my head
won't let me go.
It
won't
let
go.
I try.

All this wasted time
this wasted life
destroys me.

I'm going to throw away that ****** little mirror
that shows me the crinkles, those ****** little wrinkles.
I'm going to rip down the closet doors which haunt
me with truth each time I pass by.
In my mind I'm
old enough to know what *** is
how to make the most of it,
and attractive enough to make it worth his while.
And how I long for those hot, panting sessions
of athletic pleasure.
But that ****** little mirror reminds me
that I sit here in my grandmother's body
trapped by weight
with bad eyes, bad knees, rough skin
knowing that it's over.

Maybe men are only good in 15 minute segments.
Good ***,
compassion,
eye contact,
laughter,
conversation.
Maybe that's all we get.
15 minutes of good,
a lifetime of good enough to get us through.

when he said he'd filed for divorce.
I thought I'd lost the need to breathe.

He took thirty-three years of my life with him
and I thought I'd lost them all.

But now, now I'm breathing
and smiling and laughing
and making plans
and cooking meals and wrapping presents and
smiling and laughing.
Now, a year later,
I'm breathing again.

And breathing feels good.

I have passed the gauntlet.
I have run through hell.
And now I can stand on the other side
and breathe.

Standing here,
hell cooling in the distance,
I think it wasn't so bad.
Like labor pains are forgotten
in the first flush of love.

I have come through the pain
and the labor and I am
New again.
Stronger.
Happier.
Scarred but not scared.
I am ready.

You speak of death
and change
and hope
and anxiety.
You beg for recognition
in rambling,
poorly allusionistic spoken words.
You waste these early morning hours
in a drunken smoky stupor
pretending to be adults.

Which of you goes home to sleep half
a day on your mom and dad's dime?
Which of you works
to buy the liquor and the smokes?

Leave this concrete stage by the
crashing waves.
Go home. Sleep it off. Get a job. Volunteer.
Grow up.

Idealism does not feed you.
It cannot shelter you.

Words don't change anything.
What you do
What you do
changes you.