With or Without You…

(Written spring of 2013)

It’s such a cliché. When did we become a cliché?

We never did conform to anyone else’s rules.

We always colored outside of the line…but now we’re THAT.

I told you…I never wanted to be that couple sitting across from each other at the restaurant,

Not talking. Not looking at each other.

We became THAT.

 

Loyal. Kind. Negative. Criticizing. Witty. Smart. Nitpick. Divide…and Conquer.

My mind races and I can’t sleep.

I never could. Thoughts come faster than I can get them down.

Being this way…It’s a curse. It’s a blessing.

I know.

I know people don’t get me. They can’t. 

I know I may die young.

I know I’m smarter than most.

I know I do dumb things.

I know my father was this way, too.

I got this from him.

He said, “I will never be happy.”

Well…I have trained, read and learned.

It’s simple. You decide how you will see things.

I know I can be happy.

I don’t think you can.

When you are already past the age of where you could be dead, every day is a gift.

What should I do?

I don’t want to live like this. But I can’t imagine life without you in it.

We are two good people who bring out the worst in each other.

You look at me, but you don’t see me. You see an illness. That’s all I am to you now.

 

I don’t want that.

The constant reminders…

I don’t want to be looked at like that.

 

A dog loses his leg and learns to walk again.

Right away.

No one is in his ear, all day and night, telling him what’s wrong…how he’s a poor thing…there’s something wrong with him.

He just gets up and walks. 

Before this, I was just me. I’m still me.

And I’ll be fine.

Without you…I think maybe I can walk again.