Ache.

by Lillian Olson

Maybe there is something good out there but all this ​ fucking shit is in the way.

One of these things is not like the others, and I realize now that I am the one out of place.

Choosing to protect ourselves is not failure.”

The days are short, too short to do much of anything. I sleep more than I exist in awareness and even when I am awake, I move through my day like a dream.

Images will flitter through my mind, and I will wonder if it was a waking memory of the day before, or if it belonged to a dream.

Today, I forgot how to put my smile on. How far should it tilt upwards? Do I grin while I talk? How do I arrange my features to say, “Everything is Fine, You Don’t Have to Worry”

Wishes and dreams won’t give you good form, dear.

Dreamers can have nightmares too.

You go to work, you laugh with them, you smile, you do your job. You work so hard. Today, you were one of them.

I’m better. In so many ways, I am better. There is no weight that settles on me when I wake in the morning.

I’m moving through my days in real time and my body feels like my own. There are monsters lurking in the corners and I know they are there.

I want a book to talk to me quietly, hushed, using that tone that is reserved for late night conversations when the lights are out

A voice in my head that isn’t my own, whispering a truth I am so reluctant to believe.