My brain is a place of deep concern to me. My brain is a place of butterflies and octopi. You haven’t seen a place such as this and I am so happy for you. You tell me to smile and chock it all up to my negative attitude – that when I text you to say I feel sick, that I am afraid of the coathanger snagging the uterus and bleeding me out, of random murder, of sexual demons, of all the roadkill – you say I think too much. You say maybe we shouldn’t be friends… because when I am this negative, it is upsetting to you.
I’m sorry for this.
I’m sorry I cannot fix my slippery gray cell patina – the smile/slime of a barbie doll on acid; the cool way I snort up the powder of suicide; the way I drink myself to oblivion, decimate my skeleton on the cliff of hopelessness — I fall short. When it comes to being in the world like a good girl — I am terrible at it — bc I am hurt/hurting in my brain, and then, you say, I’m a lot to handle, and you need some time/space away. From me.
I’m sorry for this.
I don’t think I can be normal for you. It’s agony to feel the driveway gravel puncturing my knees as I wait for things to get better — as I beg God to turn me around, let him spank me red/raw, or kiss the toes of his son; (you know I would) — go outside and let the cold burn me – as if it could pasteurize the fetid illness — freeze the chlamydia, the rot, the yellowed liver, brain disease… I imagine you chewing on my sinews… a rabid squirrel; hoarding all the acorns, clogging my limbic system; gnawing the naughty synapse gleaned — all just to make me behave better. I don’t think you have the energy…
I want to be the chickadee who freezes to death on the shimmering pine branch — falls from her perch without ever knowing of death, without ever feeling a damn thing.
And I am so sorry for this.
Photo by Tiago Bandeira on Unsplash
Elisabeth Horan
Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She writes to survive and survives to write - We are all battling something. Let's support each other. Elisabeth enjoys riding horses and caring for her cats, chickens, goats and children (not necessarily in that order). She teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.
