can't you rearrange the letters?

3 months later, and i
finally shuffled through
the paperwork muddled
with medical abbreviations.

i found you there,
a diagnosis with too heavy
of implications.

for 10 years i've wondered;
you followed me through
everything, unbeknownst to me.

and it doesn't help
to be told not to
"focus on the labels"
or "let it define you".

it doesn't help to hear:
"does this really change anything?"

yes, it kind of does.

it's only one doctor's opinion
after all, one who implied it
shouldn't be based on a
short-lived crisis,

but someone signed
off on it, right?

it's funny, isn't it?
i'm the one who wanted
answers for so long
but nobody talked it over,
there was no evaluation,
left to process it alone,

like this life,

like all my changing emotions,

like the humanity i felt i've lost.

a diagnosis with a good prognosis
but a world full of stigma,

of assumptions and contradictions,

of trauma and confusing attachments
and a history I can't seem to heal from.