It's OK If You Don't Read This...

...I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.
~~~~~

There are times I curse this sickness
turn my face skyward and loose soundless howls to the heavens
stare into the grey beyond for endless hours
oblivious to the rest.

Fuck.

31 years.

Back and forth we've gone, this sickness and me, since I was a child.

31 years, closing in on 32...

Double fuck.

So long, so deep, so present has it been in my life,
I have very few memories of a time before.

Was there a time before it colored everything,
coated it all in this residue of sorrow?

There must have been,
because I remember
how it poured slowly over the horizon
a stain in the light that no one else saw
sticky
cloying
suffocating
creeping closer and closer
until it covered all the world.

The cure, for me
is worse than the disease
erasing
negating
my Self.

I lose me
and while I may not like me
sometimes even hate me
I don't want to be anyone else
because better the me I know
that the one I don't

So I endure.

And here I am, enduring...
when I should be rejoicing...

I am in love...and loved...

I have a brilliant son
and beloved friends
and am packing even now for a cruise with Mum
ten days in the Caribbean

but it just doesn't matter

and I can't seem to care

can't seem to feel anything

but this futility.

Fuck.

I hate, hate, hate feeling useless, worthless,
though I may be
I don't have to like the feeling
the knowing

Ignorance is bliss.

I am not ignorant.

Double fuck.

I want to cry all day
but instead
paste on a smile
and pretend
it's OK
because it's not
but why should anyone else have to suffer
or deal with
my stupid misfiring neurons?

Double, double fuck, fuck, fuckery.