Jan 2013
I. You are an angel,
a beautiful crystal-clear wet tongued straight-spined haloed human,
bringing that peace,
bring that piece of you that everybody needs. You hand it out like sin at a confessional, like blue jeans in Texas. They all need you. They all want to be saved.
You have something that everybody wants. They want that silver aura, that mist that hangs off your hips, a cloud that only God could have sent down with you. It is a stench.
II. You did not shiver when he touched you. You did not bark, did not swing your fists, did not pray, did not scalp him. You only asked to go in a different room, so your sister wouldn't have to witness
your ******* and the hollow of your collarbones not holding tears you held in. This one is not a lie. When he poked you in the morning, toe hanging out of his sock, you stared at him, weak smile. Smile keep smiling keep smiling walk out the door. Never feel shame, never wash your hands seventy-three times, never wake up four years later that same month and unconsciously decide to have *** with one person who looks like him and another who shares his name.
III. You wanted help. You
wanted attention, wanted somebody to pick up the phone, the line dead, you screaming you blaring you walking mindfully stepping over cracks you spitting out condolences and quotes like a book on grief. You want help.
IV. When you called the girl's father to tell him she had five new razor blades baptizing her back pocket, you did not lie to her when she asked if it was you.
V. If she had died, you would have lost more.
VI. You have an addiction to being ****** up. Not on anything, not on the pills you stole from your father, not on the mushrooms you gave to your mother, not on the bottles that sit in your kitchen like gravestones, scattered, weeping. No, this is on being
****** up.
Ask me how long I've been in therapy. Ask me if I can get enough.
VII. I can't. There will never be enough time for me to fill up "process group" with a voice that tells everyone that I am more damaged than them, that I've got more past, that I binge and starve and take pills that make me suicidal, that I've cut and have blurred the lines between ***, love, and intimacy, that my father was absent. That my father could hold a place in my life and still be
absent. That my father is a functioning alcoholic, that at least he didn't beat me, as far as I remember. That my mother carries her sorrow in boxes, carries her untold stories in the back of her throat, in the pit of her stomach, in her sweat. She compartmentalizes, you were a room she filled up with ****. That I am borderline, that I am bipolar, that I am **** spun into a web and called a patient, called smart and shy but I've got a need that will never run dry and it's for ears, it's for noses that can't smell out the lies, though I don't know if I have any.
VIII. I just have a need. My mother says that you can get addicted to therapy. My mother has never been a ******, doesn't know addiction. Doesn't know anorexia, only knows dinner with her daughter. Doesn't know depression, only knows a daughter who gets sad. Doesn't know borderline, says it's too severe. Says I could never be crazy enough for that.
IX. The woman I had *** with that shared his name called me crazy. I'm sure she went to sleep soft and angelic that night. I'm sure she has no baggage. She asked if she can visit me at the hospital. I asked her if she planned on bringing her suitcase too.
X. They want me and I let them. I want friend, I want family, I want a dinner that isn't me eating slivers and then shaking it off, I want -
XI. I wonder if it's an act. I feel myself talking. I am digging myself a hole. I am digging myself whole but at the risk of raw soul and flashing teeth and bleeding makeup, tissues in the middle of the circle I have too much pride to walk up to. This is my confessional. I pick a problem and never let it go, turn it into hospitalization, turn it into inhumanity, turn it into I Could Have Been More Than What's Happened To Me. Never take responsibility, never ask yourself why you are so happy to be on meds when the meds make you want to die. Never learn faith. Never learn patience. Learn mental tantrums. Learn how to take it like a woman. Learn how it feels when your therapist calls you seductive, calls you intentional. Learn how it feels to have your psychiatrist call you hot.
XII. Never trust yourself, not ever. Not your opinions, not your ink blots, not your journal entries. Question everything, all the time, in therapy. See a personality disorder online and decide you have it. See an addiction, have it verified. See your vulnerability on display, call it therapy. You beg for this. They call you strong and you question that too. You think you haven't been through that much, but you sure act like you have.
a beautiful crystal-clear wet tongued straight-spined haloed human,
bringing that peace,
bring that piece of you that everybody needs. You hand it out like sin at a confessional, like blue jeans in Texas. They all need you. They all want to be saved.
You have something that everybody wants. They want that silver aura, that mist that hangs off your hips, a cloud that only God could have sent down with you. It is a stench.
II. You did not shiver when he touched you. You did not bark, did not swing your fists, did not pray, did not scalp him. You only asked to go in a different room, so your sister wouldn't have to witness
your ******* and the hollow of your collarbones not holding tears you held in. This one is not a lie. When he poked you in the morning, toe hanging out of his sock, you stared at him, weak smile. Smile keep smiling keep smiling walk out the door. Never feel shame, never wash your hands seventy-three times, never wake up four years later that same month and unconsciously decide to have *** with one person who looks like him and another who shares his name.
III. You wanted help. You
wanted attention, wanted somebody to pick up the phone, the line dead, you screaming you blaring you walking mindfully stepping over cracks you spitting out condolences and quotes like a book on grief. You want help.
IV. When you called the girl's father to tell him she had five new razor blades baptizing her back pocket, you did not lie to her when she asked if it was you.
V. If she had died, you would have lost more.
VI. You have an addiction to being ****** up. Not on anything, not on the pills you stole from your father, not on the mushrooms you gave to your mother, not on the bottles that sit in your kitchen like gravestones, scattered, weeping. No, this is on being
****** up.
Ask me how long I've been in therapy. Ask me if I can get enough.
VII. I can't. There will never be enough time for me to fill up "process group" with a voice that tells everyone that I am more damaged than them, that I've got more past, that I binge and starve and take pills that make me suicidal, that I've cut and have blurred the lines between ***, love, and intimacy, that my father was absent. That my father could hold a place in my life and still be
absent. That my father is a functioning alcoholic, that at least he didn't beat me, as far as I remember. That my mother carries her sorrow in boxes, carries her untold stories in the back of her throat, in the pit of her stomach, in her sweat. She compartmentalizes, you were a room she filled up with ****. That I am borderline, that I am bipolar, that I am **** spun into a web and called a patient, called smart and shy but I've got a need that will never run dry and it's for ears, it's for noses that can't smell out the lies, though I don't know if I have any.
VIII. I just have a need. My mother says that you can get addicted to therapy. My mother has never been a ******, doesn't know addiction. Doesn't know anorexia, only knows dinner with her daughter. Doesn't know depression, only knows a daughter who gets sad. Doesn't know borderline, says it's too severe. Says I could never be crazy enough for that.
IX. The woman I had *** with that shared his name called me crazy. I'm sure she went to sleep soft and angelic that night. I'm sure she has no baggage. She asked if she can visit me at the hospital. I asked her if she planned on bringing her suitcase too.
X. They want me and I let them. I want friend, I want family, I want a dinner that isn't me eating slivers and then shaking it off, I want -
XI. I wonder if it's an act. I feel myself talking. I am digging myself a hole. I am digging myself whole but at the risk of raw soul and flashing teeth and bleeding makeup, tissues in the middle of the circle I have too much pride to walk up to. This is my confessional. I pick a problem and never let it go, turn it into hospitalization, turn it into inhumanity, turn it into I Could Have Been More Than What's Happened To Me. Never take responsibility, never ask yourself why you are so happy to be on meds when the meds make you want to die. Never learn faith. Never learn patience. Learn mental tantrums. Learn how to take it like a woman. Learn how it feels when your therapist calls you seductive, calls you intentional. Learn how it feels to have your psychiatrist call you hot.
XII. Never trust yourself, not ever. Not your opinions, not your ink blots, not your journal entries. Question everything, all the time, in therapy. See a personality disorder online and decide you have it. See an addiction, have it verified. See your vulnerability on display, call it therapy. You beg for this. They call you strong and you question that too. You think you haven't been through that much, but you sure act like you have.
