Yes, thank you for the invitation but I must decline. Your arms are less than welcoming. Yet you linger in my stomach, unwanted. It’s the smell of Bud Light on someone’s breath passing by me on the street. The sound of someone’s voice being raised, even slightly. The daunting task of speaking in front of my class when the professor calls my name. Those eyes, all on me. You are a paper cut that won’t stop bleeding, I need help stopping it, but I handle it on my own because I can’t ask for help. The words that are too hard to say and “too harsh” in my book, because maybe they would hurt? Even though I’m being honest, not rude. I can’t even stand up for myself because you make me think I could hurt their feelings. How stupid is that? You show up when I’m in need of something, but I have to ask a stranger for it, so I just don’t. I find you’ve sieged my being and put up walls that are stronger than any wall we’ve ever seen in all of American history. You walk right into the doors of my mind, without knocking. How rude, I must say. This is not what I asked for when I was given this thing, called life. I didn’t ask you to follow me through this forest of sadness that I’ve lost myself in. You, my awful companion, have overstayed your welcome. And It’s not like I’ve come to know you and your wretched name through time. I’ve known you since the beginning of my own. But now? Yes, now is the time that you must be shown the door that you disregarded. I know you’ll casually let yourself in in the future, but for now, your invitation has expired.