i'm eighteen and
my mind is running away

you're screaming
ranting and raving
but don't know you're
doing it and don't know
that i'm crawling
inside a cave where
nothing can touch me
except wanting to die

you were grumbling after
dinner that i don't talk
to anybody anymore
but you don't know that i'm
not lacking words i'm just
lacking the energy
that it would take to
use any of them

(flashbacks to all the times recently
you've complained i don't love you
anymore. to my whole lifetime of
wondering if you loved me at all)

i'm thirteen and
unaware of my anxiety
associated with existence
usually put in in writing as
"pressure". but you don't think
there's anyone pressuring me

i talk too much to too
many people and have
been hurt before. but
never in that abject
way of it being because
i set myself up for it

(emotions so haywire that i end
up hospitalized over a box of
broken cd cases. now that i
remember it i was rage cleaning
and would unquestionably have
an even worse reaction today)

i'm seven and
having another ocular
migraine even though
i don't know it

(the past as as brittle as the
uncooked spaghetti filched
from the box and wedging
between my crooked teeth)

my memory fails me
whether you steamed
your way through preparing
dinner in the kitchen of faded
herbal wallpaper with words
and woodgrain. if i've been
tuning it out all this time
only to notice recently

("you're just like me" you said today
my seven-year old self thinks that's cool
while my current self is wishing to
deck someone while saying nothing)

today and tonight when intrusive
memories keep coming back is when i
remember that if i don't automatically
see things from your side there will
be a row. despite the fact you have
never investigated my perspective

(you're complaining about how
badly you sleep and how it's my
fault for waking you up at
four a.m. but did you ever stop
to ask why the ******* your
daughter is awake at four a.m.)

"my whole body hurts" you said
having taken some chronic
illnesses for some light grocery
shopping and attend a reception
"so does mine" i said
having taken a dark cloud
with me to work and
a panic attack to the library
"mine hurts worse" you replied
"and how do you know that" i demanded
sweeping my sadness off the kitchen table
"because i just do"

i guess your problem is that you
don't know how to be in pain without
minimizing mine but how hypocritical
when i'm over here minimizing
your pain to justify the fact that
my brain is trying to **** my body

(one of these days i fear what
i don't say will get the best
of me and i will crack clean
in two. start screaming
through doors death threats
ending in quadruple homicide
accompanied by my own
swinging body. it's not that
i hate everyone i just hate
feeling like i hate everyone)

but for now i'm investigating the perspective
so startlingly clear that you never loved me
just did what was required of you and so by that
standard i never would have loved you either