Study yourself- measure the intangible thing exactly.
Collect the data, but throw it out - you exaggerated.
Describe your experience, in detail, but know that
it's just a formality, for insurance- you seem fine.
Results of our studies say you're simply not real.
It isn't possible, no way around it. No way around
the system we've created to keep mercy confined
inside the sterile bottle of preapproved problems and solutions.

This has never happened to us, so it cannot happen to you.
This is not something I've seen before- and I am God.
This isn't pain, it's nothing, just a sham, a trend, vanity.
This must be fun, writing sad little pleas for help, cancelling life,
quitting your job all for the sake of playing pretend. Playing sick.
This would all go away if you would just lose a little weight,
grow so thin we could tuck you in an envelope with the bill and
send you back home. Come back when you're dead.

Are you sure you're not just anxious? Insane? Confused?
Are you secretly drinking rat poison, but you forgot?
Are you trying to get out of having to enjoy life?
Are you sure you're not just hysterical, womb wandering angrily
through your psyche, whispering silly things it read on the internet?
Are you simply an interloper here to ruin our day
by insisting that you are not a healthy young woman
who simply needs to get a hobby? Get laid? Get lost?

Have you tried gratitude? Yoga? Mindfulness? God? Satan?
Tums? Shutting up? Ibuprofen? Having a baby?
Have you tried being an entirely different person, the right kind?
Have you considered that you're not medically but
spiritually defective, missing a piece of your soul?
Have you considered that we're simply not willing to try
because the only thing wrong with you is you
and you've become quite a burden to us all?

We're sure you think you are sick- but we're sick of you.
We're sure you're just looking for attention, sympathy,
to challenge us, to get some mysterious satisfaction.
You must love spending all your time here, paying us in blood,
ignoring our script, writing your own. We've got your number-
in just a few rushed moments, forty five minutes late, we've
disassembled you in our heads, lost the screws, determined that
you're simply of subclinical importance. Here's that bill.

You know I love you
You must know all the things I do,
Big things, small things,
Despite your worry, I will not go.
But sometimes you annoy me,
With lots of small things,
Is it your way to avoid me?
Or do you miss the pain it brings?
Toilet seats, left up all the time,
Open ******* boxes all over the pantry,
Crumbs on the floor and ants in a line,
Towels stuck in the microwave; I'm angry!
Why can't you do these simple things?
It's not a lot to ask.
Don't get me started on your room:
Clothes and junk are just too much,
And in the other one, A Temple of Doom,
Your record collection sits untouched.
Downstairs, there’s a pile of tools,
filling up the dining room,
It'd be great if you used these "jewels";
You're so attached they should be in the bedroom!
They're just lots of small things,
Why won't you clean them up?
To me they're irritating things,
And they just keep piling up.
All the small things
Sitting here for twenty years.
Are they the talismans
Against your fears?
You used to bring me flowers
To show me that you cared.
Now you shop online for hours;
I sometimes forget you’re there.
When you ignore the small things,
I’ll dig them out of a pile
And see what money they bring;
You won’t notice after a while.
Maybe in twenty years more
I’ll have all these things
Whittled down and cleared
And we could be each other’s things
Once more.

Sharon Talbot - 2010-2024

Not quite strong enough to pass,
although I try,
and beat with painted wings upon the glass,
the world beyond the window is where I want to be,
success is the garden, the butterfly is me

I remember praying to you, and you did not answer.  
I was told God listened to His children,  
But you sure didn't listen to me.  
I was told to fast so my prayers could be answered quickly,  
I starved myself from food, fed only on prayer and faith for days,  
Hoping for some good but only ended in the hospital.  
You didn't answer.  

My clothes were drenched in tears,  
I felt myself dehydrated.  
I prayed from dusk till dawn,  
But still no answer.  

That pain I felt isn't there anymore.  
Not because things are finally looking up,  
It's because I'm losing faith.  
I feel numb to all the pain.  
You weren't there when I needed you the most.  

All those people lied to me when they said you come in times of need.  
They said if God doesn't answer,  
It's because He knows one can handle it.  
But here I am thinking that my definition of "handle" and His aren't the same.  
Unless, if wishing to die, isolation, and sh is His definition,  
Then I guess I'm handling everything perfectly.