Recycle

I want to put it all in a package

every slippery slope of a memory

that I slide down into another

aching depression.

My family is mine but I do not want them.

My life is mine but I do not want it.

My choices are mine but I do not take them.

My past is mine but I wanted to share it

with you.

Not this way, though.

I wanted to see it through you -

safer, warmer, making more sense.

Having more purpose.

I wanted our pasts to bring us together

in a glorious present

to us both, to our future,

to our future children.

I wanted every ache to be soothed

in your love

I wanted every mistake to be rectified

in your understanding

I wanted to find myself through you.

Now I talk to my best friend so much

and I worry that it's too much

I worry that she'll think I'm replacing you

with her, trying to replace you,

trying to fill a need she isn't meant to fill.

And never was. Why is it so easy to

talk to her, and is that a bad thing?

My words pour out and

always seem to be meaningful -

at least to me. I think a dozen times

a hundred times a month

does she resent me for talking so

much? Does she wait for her turn

and never get it? Does she think,

a dozen times, that I am a bore

and will clearly never find someone

who wants to listen to me?

And I eat. Sweets and breads. And I am

like dough but I am not sweet.

And I sleep. And when I am in bed, I wake up

and when I'm up I want to sleep. And when

I feel happy, a song comes on the radio

or a thought is a parasite in my mind

and suddenly I cry because of your old

dorm room, or because my best friend

might not want me to say good

morning to her every morning,

or because I am alone in the toy store

and we aren't selling any toys and this

whole wide world is full of isolation.

And I am an introverted, angst-

ridden adolescent, because I stopped talking

and my growth found its stuntedness in

not just my vegetarian diet but in the

diet of depression. I cannot tell what is

good for me, and what is immature, and

what I should or shouldn't do. Will I ever

know? Does God want me to know what to

do, and feel confident doing it? So many things

were not an issue in the past (the past

before me), like confidence, a billion life

choices, whether or not you spent time

outside. I see your past in my mind and I

want it. I want to BE you. Why?

This package will cost too much to send.

I'll let it sit in a corner or in my car

until maybe I forget what's in it

and can just toss it in the recycling bin

and recycle my memories into something

more useful. That can be my saving grace.

Thank goodness our landlady

put the blue bins in our yard.

~November 10, 2010