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This blog post is going to be structured a little differently.
Typically, my posts all revolve around the same format: I begin with a small quote, poem, or picture that I feel sums up my topic better than I ever could, and then I elaborate in my own words. Today, I’d like to share a poem with y’all that I discovered back in college and set my heart on fire. I’m not sure why, but its words have been on my mind recently. This time, someone else’s words will make up the majority of my blog post, and my own will be short. The Nutritionist, by Andrea Gibson The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted. Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness is The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight Said for $20 she’d tell me what to do I handed her the twenty, she said, “stop worrying darling, you will find a good man soon” The first psychotherapist said I should spend three hours a day sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed, with my ears plugged I tried once but couldn’t stop thinking about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet The yogi told me to stretch everything but truth, said focus on the outbreaths, everyone finds happiness when they can care more about what they can give than what they get The pharmacist said klonopin, lamictil, lithium, xanax The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget what the trauma said The trauma said don’t write this poem Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones My bones said, “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.” My bones said, “write the poem.” The lamplight. Considering the river bed. To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread. To every day you could not get out of bed. To the bulls-eye on your wrist To anyone who has ever wanted to die. I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do -- Is remind ourselves over and over and over Other people feel this too The tomorrow that has come and gone And it has not gotten better When you are half finished writing that letter to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back" There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into your spine So let me tell you, I know there are days it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings You are not alone and wondering who will be convicted of the crime of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside Some people will never understand the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house But my hands are always holding tight to the ripcord of believing A life can be rich like the soil Can make food of decay Can turn wound into highway Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says “it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society” I have never trusted anyone with the pulled-back bow of my spine the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town Calculating exactly what I had to swallow to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down What I know about living is the pain is never just ours Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window When I can see what I couldn’t see before, through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don’t try to put me back in just say here we are, together at the window, aching for it to all get better but knowing as bad as it hurts, our hearts may have only just skinned their knees knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming. Let me say right now, for the record, I’m still gonna be here asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet You -- you stay here with me, okay? You stay here with me. Raising your bite against the bitter dark Your bright longing Your brilliant fists of loss Friend, If the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other, My god that’s plenty My god that’s enough My god that is so so much for the light to give Each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over “Live” “Live” “Live” When I first started studying mental illnesses and really writing about my own experiences with depression and bulimia, I got a lot of support. But, there comes a time when people expect you to simply “move on.” And yet, still I write. It’s partly because I can’t move on. Depression is as a part of my brain chemistry as the color blue is a part of my irises. I manage it, but it matter-of-factly is. So, I write because words are my therapy. I write because publishing my long-locked-away thoughts is cathartic. I write to rouse deeper levels of self-awareness. I write because nothing seems as scary once it’s put down on paper, once it has a name. I write for one more reason as well -- it gives me a purpose. It’s partly due to the stigma that surrounds these types of diseases, but a common symptom of mental illnesses is feeling like no one in the world could understand what you’re going through, and no one in the world would love you if they did. I know I used to feel that way. So, when I began to recover from bulimia and learned ways to cope with depression, I made myself a vow: no one I knew would ever feel like they were alone in their mental illness struggles. I fail that promise I made myself sometimes. I hate phone calls, I’m not that great at checking in with people, and I can be more than a little selfish. But, I want to do better. I’m trying to do better. I have to do better, because that line in “The Nutritionist” haunts me: “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.” Andrea’s bones said write the poems. My bones say write the blog posts. So, friends, if you need someone to talk to, someone to encourage you, someone to tell you it gets better, please reach out. I know I would give anything to say that to my 19-year-old self. Because it does. It really and truly does.
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About the AuthorConfessions of a failed southern lady. I've got messy hair and a thirsty heart. Writer, photographer, career wanderer. Archives
May 2023
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