I am in the grip of a storm.  I don’t do well in a storm.  I can barely breathe, barely blink.  I am drowning.  I have forgotten that I am supposed to keep my eye on the surface, stretch to the moon, take hold of happiness no matter how fleeting.  I have lost the words, lost the feeling in my fingers and in my bones.  I am a stranger.  I am about to turn 50 and I am a stranger in a body I loathe and abuse.  I don’t recognize the shape of my mouth or this new sadness that slashes it. I have been waiting a lifetime for it all to get easier, just a bit easier. It just gets harder, creaks, shrieks, breaks.  I am not who I was supposed to be.  I can’t remember where I was lost or when I gave up on being found.  I try to smudge out my reflection, fracture it, run from it, pretend that I am not this frail flesh, this breaking heart, this ugliness.  I try to write poems, but they are empty, made of air, burn up before they can draw breath.