Lately, I am a blade on the wind.  Unsteady.  Damaging. I am trapped in the clutches of an elixir that lies.  I swallow the murmurs of depression with bottles of wine and bags of crisps, but can’t ever fully escape the noise.   It sits heavy in my belly and pushes out through my skin.  I wear it in my poems about fat girls and self loathing. I hold it against the roof of my mouth and in my clenched jaw, trying not to wake up.  Trying not to see.

Although the pulse of days hum within the anticipation of that first drink,  there are other things that bring me flashes of what I think joy might feel like; the kindness of strangers, the words fitting together just right, reading poetry that sneaks inside me.  But, when the sweet scent of these things fades, I am stuck in my skin again, trapped behind my eyes. I explode beneath a light that exposes my bruises and causes me pain. I shrink back into the bottle and disappear into someone I could have been.

Lately I am waves that beg to be left alone, to crash against the horizon in peace. I am not here to be what people imagine me to be.  If I am given my voice, it isn’t mine.  I have to take it, pull it from its hiding places, set it loose to find the notes it is meant to share or let it live in silence if that is what the sky dictates.  I cannot be defined, even if I crave definition.  I cannot be placed in a box, even if the box is gilded with temptation.  I cannot be who I see at the bottom of the glass, in a mirror warped by drunken confidence.  I cannot be who you think I am. I cannot be who you want me to be.