I am Not sad

I am not sad, she would repeat to herself over and over. I am not sad as if she might one day convince herself. Or fool herself, or convince others the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know your sad. I am not sad I am not sad because her life had unlimited potential for happiness, in so far as it was an empty white room. She would fall asleep with her heart at the foot of her bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of her at all, and each morning she would wake with it again in the cupboard of her rib cage. Having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by mid-afternoon she was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else, somewhere else I am not sad