19 YEARS OLD!
and you've never gone out?
never held hands?
never had your first date?
never been kissed?
never had a boyfriend?
(or a girlfriend...)
never learned to put make-up on?
never gotten your driver's license?
never had sex?
never had a cigarette?
never had a drink?
19 YEARS OLD-
and you know how to crochet?
you take meds every morning?
and you take meds every night?
you lived in a hospital for three months?
you have more friends in recovery than college?
you've lived with two roommates, and only two,
only to have them buried without you there?
you didn't walk across a stage, shake a hand, get your diploma?
you finished high school on your kitchen counter?
you considered yourself lucky if you saw 2 friends a year?
you decided every day that you weren't going to die?
you ate meals knowing that people were starving in the U.S.?
you choked down sandwiches, crying because your friends couldn't do the same?
you started to count on the fact that anniversaries would come?
you believed in your recovery long enough to plan celebrations ahead of time?
you were in the hospital? out of state?
you found a family that brought you back to life?
that put so much life inside of you, you had to grow, just to find space for it? it still overflowed?
you changed your last name without getting married?
you decided not to do what you'd seen your family do, even if you had to lose them over it?
you had birthdays? you grew older every year, and girls who'd been your elders stayed stuck at seventeen? nineteen?
you passed them by?
how could you?
how do you?
you eat three meals a day?
you snack?
you feel?
you recognize you're not a criminal?
you live and let yourself live?
you've talked people off ledges more times than you can count, and you've stood by broken bodies on the ground below - when no one bothered to ask you for permission to jump. when you weren't there. you're only 19; you should not have gone through all this. this should not have happened to you. a girl can't survive so much.
you're like a lab experiment mistake. we check your vitals and we watch and wait. you can't have faced all these factors and still be here, like you are... so we're just waiting to see what it's done to you. we're waiting for evidence of mutation.
you assholes. you know shit about what it means to come of age.
my head's impersonation of everyone I love: HOW DARE YOU LIVE?
my head's uncanny impersonation of me: HOW DARE YOU NOT?