I felt like you went and walked all over my love for you.

I am not a cop
politician
or preacher
I am not the director
of advertising
head of sales
or top model
I am not your mother
father
or annoying uncle
therefore
I am not going to tell you
what to do

Slowly it burns,
the thick white smoke,
lazily it turns
curls up from
my mouth's manifold.
The fire lays hidden
beneath the ash
which has still not fallen.
Rays of light descend on me
its path through the smoke
now clearly I can see..

It's hard to understand how i'm feeling. It's as if i'm the first person to ever be paralyzed from the neck down. Around me are people who keep telling me "just get up" or "go take out the trash" then getting angry when they can't understand why. All my friends think i must just hate them, because i never go out and do anything with them. Not because i don't want to, but because i can't.

It's as if i'm drowning in a sea, surrounded by mermaids, who don't understand why i can't "just breathe." These mermaids refuse to let me go back on shore to the other people like me, the people who understand, saying i'll ruin my life if i go back on land.

It's as if depression is viewed not as a condition but as an excuse.

Something amazing happened last week
For a moment I felt what it was like to be young again
With my memories I can never quite get there

But I try

I’ll close my eyes when I eat a chipwich
it tastes like running back to our beach umbrella with sticky fingers
the summer we rented a cottage in Montauk
I long for the itchy feeling of sand in my bathing suit
and for the salt to sting my eyes again

That would be heaven
But I still throw the wrapper away in the stainless steel trash can
beneath the sink in my apartment
that is exactly two hundred miles and twenty three years from Ditch Plains

It hurts sometimes
to remember how much I have forgotten
When we had dance parties to the Austin Powers soundtrack
When watching mom get dressed
and waiting for the babysitter
and kissing you goodbye
and chicken nuggets for dinner
was the best feeling in the world
Because I knew I could always expect
the smell of your coffee in the morning
those days when we lived in the red house on Craft Avenue.

But last week
in the backseat of a friend’s car
driving back to Boston after a long hike
I watched the gray forest pass by outside my window
and I fought to keep my eyes open
I was no longer thirty-five
I knew the moment would come when I would be lifted out of my car seat
and brought inside
where you would light a fire
and mom would make hot chocolate for us
And later we would eat homemade popcorn and watch Titanic
as our winter boots lay on their sides in the front hall
the snow between the treads slowly melting and darkening the wood floor

I felt very safe inside that car
the kind that only a child on the brim of sleep can feel
I don’t know if I will feel that way again
But I will still close my eyes when I eat a chipwich
and wait for the smell of your coffee in the morning

Can you see me?
Can you hear me?
                           What do I have to do?
They say be yourself,but what if I am still figuring that out?
Could I not be the wind,powerful,able to embrace who I want
and blow away the ones that curse my gale.
I want to be cared for and loved...
No more pleading with my eyes and body.
Aching inside (it hurts,tears fall).
Maybe I am destined to be alone...
but that is to cruel.
Can anyone see my potential and my goodness?
I have so much to give,is it wrong that I want to receive also.
I thirst and hunger for love.
Just wish they could see me,
the real me.