One Day After a Rough Therapy Session

Did you know? My children are grown, far away and I have this sense, true like a bone, strong and elemental, that I never finished parenting them and there is damage that I can help heal, water, soap, burn ointment, fresh clean air.

Did you know? I’m a big baby and I feel sick and I was rambling around the kitchen last night searching for something hot, spicy, that could break through this coating of malaise or is mucous? I wanted mango ice cream with hot peppers, straight whiskey with cinnamon, potato chips dipped in chocolate sauce. I found a Christmas cake, never eaten, a gift, ignored. Rum cake. Ingredients. Sugar. Butter. Heavy creme, held together with rum. But it stilled me. For a second. I still wanted something more.

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Did you know? This illness is inside of me, but I’m attacking it like I used to do to myself. I wonders, am I standing too close to the edge, too close to the flame? I’m getting injured and sick like I did when I was a teen, alive and feeling it all. Before I learned to disassociate.

Did you know? I’m telling myself another story. Is it a chime? Or a bell from a spooky tower? I don’t know if it’s springtime or Halloween. I’m coming out of the zombie state, but I don’t know why what’s finding me are a burn, a bloody knee, a turned ankle and this cough, cold, waking up in a cold sweat. This is what happened the first time I paid attention.

Did you know I still believe in curses? My therapist calls this magical thinking. How do you unknit this? How do you unstrike the bell? How do you break the curse and this time be ok, not a target? For those men. You know, those men. Allowed to speak, but for real.

Did you know? I’ve been writing. I’ve been writing. Writing and burning every word. There is a space though. I think. Opening up.