this is just how it is.

last week i was tripping all over the wires and wednesday i broke free, out of that small, crowded room with a screaming roommate and a pain so visceral i cringed.

the middle of it all is okay because i don't have a choice but to live it. it is now, afterward, when i can do nothing else but remember it.

everything i understood left me when i took out my IV and discharged myself.

what remains is a blank space where all the things i can do, wanted to do, have disappeared.

when i came home, the phone was ringing off the hook. the screen was filled with one, two, three four text messages.

a stranger asks how i am feeling and i can talk to them. i spit scientific facts, details, banalities.

i know what to say to them. i am just a name on a chart.

but to the ones i love, i send out the mass text messages and forget to return calls.

i hibernate, because i don't want to explain why instead of feeling better, i feel worse.

i am grateful for this flood of support, for all the ears straining to hear my complaints, for all those whose arms are outstretched, just waiting to help.

but i don't want to be like this anymore.

i would like to walk ten miles and only complain about two.

i want to understand more than just the prick of the needle, the instantaneous pain.

i want to know what happens after.

i took out my IV myself, so why can't i do more?

all i know is this: i want to go home.

with that hand on my back, with the curtains drawn.

no expectation. no explanation.

no need to do anything at all except sleep,

sleep,

sleep.