How To Make People Stay Away From You

Disease, illness, disorder: nope, sorry, you don't work anymore.

I feel like I need to be unlocked.

But I also feel like I need to not 

be touched, because my worsts 

are all done unto me by myself

and I love them as much as I hate

them; without them I wouldn't

have anything to me to draw

people in.

Disease, illness, disorder - captains

of "How To Make People Stay Away

From You" - are failing now; they've

become a trend, a plot device,

and suddenly people think you can

fix an eating disorder with one

good meal, or depression with one

day not featuring any frowns,

because that's what they see on

television.

They get angry when they can't.

So the love and affection you get

is temporary and ephemeral,

because you're not what they

expected you to be when they

tried helping you, unaware that

their methods and little lovely

words aren't therapy and aren't

fixing.

But I could fix what I do to myself

so easily, I know I could. I could

throw out all my blades and start

eating again and keeping it down

and I could take my god damn

medicine.

But I can't, because I have nothing

else to offer, and without all my

sadness and incomprehensible

anxiety, without the cuts on top

of all my stretch marks and my

stomach so empty and throat so

raw I pass out and cough blood

and can't sing anymore, there's

no percentage of me people would

be even vaguely, barely, honestly 

interested in.

I have no talents. I sing too much

but I have no reliability to it, I'm

not intelligent to any remarkable

degree, I can't draw, I can't dance,

don't even get me started on my

acting or conversational skills; I

try to write and s**t like this

happens.

But if I was unlocked enough to ever

say this out loud, the people who - 

through some fluke - have decided

that they love me would either leave

in disgust or urge me to get better.

But there's nothing good to get better for,

and I still feel like I need to be unlocked.

Author's Note

More of a personal confession than a poem.

Reviews

[Pratik Bhandari]

The feelings direct from the heart (y)