Surprisingly, I am not spending the holidays
in a court ordered facility, even though I
thought it might happen, the likelihood high.
I am somehow safe, in the strangest of ways,
fluctuating between the fear of living and dying.
It's like I need to imagine the most
dramatic scenarios to purge them from
my mind. I set deadlines to scare both
you and me, acting as a catalyst, pushing
me to act in spite of the apprehension.
And now that date is hours away, and I
remain - a fixture supposedly standing
for a reason unknown.
I'm sorry for everything I implied,
used as a reason to say goodbye.
I'm sure you know how deeply I wanted
to be rescued, to be a missing person
borders away, to be looked for and someday
found. I realize now why you left so abruptly -
you did not want any part in me planning
my escape. I wish I could turn it all around
[it always comes back to you, doesn't it?].
Your memory is a Christmas present never
designed to be permanently mine. I must send
it back, repack the trauma we unraveled,
erase your name from my dependent lips.
Or, I could keep you as a New Year's resolution
and attempt to find the meaning in losing you.
But I easily tire of accumulating the positives,
of looking for silver linings in graveyards.
I will forever acknowledge the irony of
keeping myself restrained, only to be abandoned
for not making the promises you requested.
I lost you as a result of losing hope in myself.
Reality is a bitter cold wind I have to fully let
enter my lungs; I cannot block its touch anymore.
I met you in spring, but knew you in summer,
as we processed the heatwaves in my brain,
the flight and freeze response, the loneliness
of a nervous system never knowing peace.
And I don't know why I'm here today, or how
I'll make it another week, but I'll stay around
to discover all that I am able to survive, all that
might ease my pain, if only for half a season.
