Gravity Works

Little Ghost

I don’t remember what happiness is. I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy. I think the only times I come close to being happy are when I embrace my sadness.

I think of my body four years ago. I’d knock back  half a bottle of pain pills and lie on the ground in the dark, carving up my body and touching my blood and floating away. I always felt like their were two of me, a body and a ghost. A specter of myself would sit on the side of the bed and watch my body lie and shake on the floor. My best friend, my witness.

I’m happy now. I’m medicated. I was medicated then too. But now I don’t overdo anything. Now I make clean calculations of my emotions. I keep my blood inside my veins, though sometimes I still ache to see it.

Someone once asked me why hurt myself, and I told them that it didn’t hurt, that opening myself up felt like happiness. What kind of happiness, he said.  I said, Happiness. Like throwing yourself out of plane as it’s crossing the ocean.

I’m better now. If better is measured in the number of open wounds in my flesh, I’m better now. Though I miss my audience, my the witness. I miss my apparition.

I didn’t feel scared then, because I didn’t feel alone.With her I never felt alone.

The night I realized all my cuts were healed, I felt more lonely than I ever had in my life. I ran my fingers across my scarred arms, and saw my specter for the last time, standing in the doorway, whispering, are you willing to sacrifice what you are for what you will become?

[© 2010 Sophia Nelson]

what is this success, glowing friendly
in my palm like a lightning bug?
what is it now that must come gently to me?
what peace is left to sidle from right shoulder
to left, closing the lid of each eye?

[© 2010 Sophia Nelson]

And Then

In my mind there is this place where everyone I know is dead.
And I’m alone.
And nobody is asking me questions. Nobody wants anything from me.

But I’m also sad. I’m more than sad. I’m desperate. I’m crazy. I’m so unbelievably heartsick I feel like vomiting.
Because I can’t stand to be without him. Because the thought of his death rips my soul apart.

I imagine what it would be like, what I would be like in his absence. I picture myself laying down in the grass and never getting up. Never feeling anything again except for sunlight and rain and wind, cut loose from all the things that make me human.

I picture myself sliced up, bloodied lines up and down my body, like I used to be, except this time I don’t feel any guilt. I just hurt, and I don’t want to stop and there’s no one left in the world to stop me.

I picture myself sick. So sick I’m writhing on the ground, like my soul is trying to escape my body, because she can’t bear to be in a place where he doesn’t exist. Because she has to find him and if she doesn’t she’ll die, trapped inside my body.

But there’s also this little flicker of peace, like a lightning bug. It just floats there in the dark, occasionally reminding me its there by the soft, small light it carries. And I realize, if he were dead I’d have nothing else to live for.

And then I’d be free.

[© 2010 Sophia Nelson]