She and I and You

She and I and You I am an unreliable narrator you say. I never know what’s happening. You are too put together to bother with her. She forgets, she falls apart, She looks at things from the wrong angles. You feel nothing about her. I can’t stop feeling things. Life is a firehose I am fighting all the time I don’t know how to function without a fight And you are maddeningly unscathed. She is unplugged, malformed, unstuck from time, She is struggling and crying and screaming And I am just trying to hold you together Just trying to get you through this Just trying to find a light in the distance to point out: We just need to make it that far. You go through motions. Sometimes you forget to breathe. She can’t feel her face right. I don’t know how to save her. There are no walls between us. You feel the pit in your stomach, the creeping dread. You are where you are. Nothing is right. Her legs aren’t real, Her body creaks like an old house. She only speaks in metaphor, only lives as metaphor. I write and write and people say what beautiful fiction And you do not see that this is just reality from another side, That there is no skill here no beauty no trickery no smoke or mirrors Just what I am splayed out what she is Pinned to the wall where you were and will be And you are walking through like a dream Following a script you never wrote. She is chasing butterflies in a field Because that’s what dreamy girls are supposed to do. She isn’t supposed to be there yet. You know what you’re supposed to do but you keep forgetting. Everything is out of order. Floodgates rusted shut a torrent behind. Flat affect. Lips. Sealed. Tight. Against anything that would give away the game. She wanted to be something but nothing worked out, Biology got in the way The narrative of her life got in the way You can explain it all You can make it sound so rational and nobody questions a thing. Of course she’s like that. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m not lazy I’m not selfish I’m not manipulating you This is inevitable. I am not in control. She is staring at the hair tie on her wrist, She cannot look them in the eye. I have depression she is trying to scream it but nothing comes out The face doesn’t move You can’t deal with it right now You aren’t going to deal with it Nobody can make you It’s not enough It’s too late She can’t open her mouth She can’t be in the same place twice. And you evaluate your steps Did you drink water, did you eat food, did you sleep? Like sleep could make a dent in this thing That she is That you are Like there’s a chicken soup A cure for crazy You’re not crazy You are She is I am.