Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I'm No Good At This.

Don’t get mad at me. I’m bad at this, at this whole asking for help thing, and admitting when I am not a super human. I hate being sick. I hate that I am sick more than most people I know. I hate that pain attaches itself to me like a sticky sap on your hands as you’re trying to climb a tree for a better view of the world around you.
I am in pain. The doctor said it wasn't gall stones, but they don't know what it is, and the medicines aren't making it better. It hurts so badly that I can’t sleep, I don’t want to eat because it makes it worse, and I can’t find something to do to distract myself, save swallow a narcotic and drift away into oblivion for a couple hours. I can’t seem to find the off switch – the one they tell me I have, that will transform the anxiety that turns itself into physical symptoms into something that I can expel like bad breath into the room and watch its escape toward the sky. I want to try, but nothing seems to free it and after years of looking for the answers, I am out of the questions to ask to lead me there.
I am frustrated. I am angry. I don’t feel like I have the right to behave the way I do. I want to tell everyone how badly I feel, but when the words are sitting on my tongue I swallow them; I am disgusted by their taste and can’t bring myself to spit them out to dismay others. I want to be free of this, this unending assault upon my body. I want my soul to house itself in something less creaky, less susceptible to illness, less relenting, less angry.
I can’t ask for help because I don’t know what help I need. I can’t ask for someone to hold me, because I’m not sure it will take away the pain. I can’t ask for anything…because I don’t know what to ask for. I don’t want your pity, I want your pain, balled up like mine, biting into your hand as you clench your fists so that your nails leave half moon imprints in the fleshy part of your palm.
Instead of trying to be calm I should be screaming. I should be wailing my frustration and anguish into the night, at the stars, at the sounds of the jets passing overhead. I want my emotions to cause turbulence, the sound creating ripples that cannot be explained and causing someone to start awake, the nightmare they can’t remember fading away too quickly to register my face.
I am like a bear that has been baited. I am bleeding and frustrated, unable to reach the objects that are torturing me; they dance out of reach. Each frustrated movement drains me. If I were calmer I would simply sit, slow my breathing, and bend my arm to stop the copper river from spilling from my veins, but I am past that. I am somewhere I have been before, yet I never remember how to get back. I am unable to see what it is that is showing me the way; it is in shadow, far ahead, flitting effortlessly through the air as I lumber along, exhausted, head hung, limping, confused.

Love and painful kisses
Morgan