I am able to distract myself
for four or five hours straight,
until I feel the pinpricks -
needles in my brain and waves of
nausea as the memories
try to break through my defense.
I stave them off
until...
until I physically can't.
Until the tension threatens
to steal my vision,
until my body aches
and I have no choice but
to fall stiffly to the floor.
There were too many sirens today.
I've told a few more people
why that is triggering.
It's something I can't ignore,
can't deafen, can't turn from.
And just like last week,
I parked my car near the
entrance to the ER,
for reasons I'm still unsure of.
Tonight, I remembered how
you asked if I wanted you
to meet me there,
but you'd already met me
somewhere else,
and I didn't know how
to let myself say "yes".
Who knows if they would have
allowed you in the intake room,
if they would have let you sit
next to me as they assessed,
as they asked specifics,
and because I rarely lie,
gave up any autonomy I had.
I wish I'd let you help me more.
If I had, would those other
times have even happened?
Maybe, if on that late Thursday,
if I'd let you know I'd stayed,
you would have understood
I was finally wanting to
work towards a solution.
But you left, and if only I'd known,
if only I'd been able to prepare,
then we could have made it
past this rupture.
But maybe there was always
going to be a rupture,
and delaying it would have
caused us both more pain.
I wish I had the power you did.
I wish I had a say in our goodbye.
I'm told everything I described
sounds like a relationship,
but see, I've never been in one.
It was never like that between us.
I trusted you maybe more
than I should have.
I became like a child
and you held the fear for me.
I don't know who I am anymore.
If I even exist.
If I am pre-birth,
a concept not fully formed.
If I am lost in adulthood,
numb like everyone else.
If I am left for dead,
simply a shell to
hold the remaining empty years.
I wish I knew how to
move from being lodged
between presence and absence,
because everyone is expecting
me to be more present
but in your absence...
in my own as well...
I've found nothing to ground me.
At least not anything substantial,
enough to stand the test of time.
