nurse

sign my cast.

sign it, "get well soon." sign it, "bffl!"
sign it with your name in a heart.

i can't draw my name in a heart
because most of the time it makes me laugh,
but some of the time it makes me cry.

yesterday i gripped the desk and gasped for air
and cried so hard i blew out my candles.

happy sweet 16 years of therapy,
happy's just another word whose definition doesn't strike me quite right,
but i have prescriptions for that.

shall i show them to you?
in lieu of a doctor's note, a letter from my parents?

this is what's wrong with me.

this is why i couldn't come to class last week,
why i had the readings done and my paper complete
and they stayed on my desk until they were four days late.

i can't get out of bed some mornings.

i hate it.

i'm awake and i know i have to go and i just can't.
i can move, can roll over, i'm not paralyzed, it's not -
it's not something i can explain from the outside,
but i can't get out of bed some mornings.

sign my cast.

i want to look down at a plaster case that's going to hold me together and heal me.
i want to see all the names of the people who asked me what happened;
the names of who i got to tell.

i can't carry my prescriptions around like a fucking battle wound.

you can't sign my fucking pills before i swallow them,
trying to heal up the cuts that bandages can't hide because they're fucking inside me.

how am i supposed to tell people what's wrong
when i don't fucking know?

nothing is wrong.

it's just that sometimes i forget that my room is messy
and then when i remember i start to cry.

sometimes i think people hate me,
and then i hate myself for thinking i'm important enough
for other people to anything me.

sometimes i want to die.

a lot of the time, i want to die.

there's no splint or sling that can hold me together.
and the worst part is that if anyone asks me what happened,
i will have to tell them,

"nothing."

this was no accident.
i was born broken.

there is no such thing as "get well soon" for me.

sign my cast,
"i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry."