you give me fifteen
minutes a day to be myself.
and so for fifteen minutes a day i
paint myself into being,

weaving a tapestry of emotions with
just black and white.
i leave my body and strip
myself down to my bones.

my soul sings; i lose being lost
something alcohol can never do
and my fingers fly over black and white.

but at the end of that fifteen
minutes my shirt is soaked with sweat;
my wrists ache and my muscles shiver with
what can be called anticipation but what

i've come to know as dread. and
then i wrap myself up in my pretences
again, shaking with the
effort of being someone i am not.

on some days i don't have that fifteen.
some days are harder to bear than others.