‘how are you?’ they ask

‘fine, thanks’
I smile.  Because my face does that. That’s what it is meant to do. And my outside and inside are not connected any more.

‘do you want to talk about it?’ they ask

‘It’s a lot’
And I watch them wait. See them watch me smile. Watch them try to connect my outside to my insides.

But they can’t do that.
Because I can’t do that.

Sometimes I say the words out loud.
Pluck them out of the blank space inside my head and hurl them out into this normal world.
They are an act of violence.
Dressed in my normal speaking voice.

‘my daughter tried to **** herself’

In the hospital, they called her ‘the overdose in bed 16’
As if the method of it mattered.
As if that was the part that needed healing.

And they ask her why.
And she tells them.

‘He left me.
Without him I have no reason to stay’

And I reach across this endless space and hold her hand.
And I hang on.
And I try not to feel my insides.