pull the key from the door,

hold yourself up and take a breath

it's okay, i'm telling myself.

i can't hear your voice any longer,

can't feel the cold at my back

or my feet tangled with the sheets

the world has ended, it's over now.

it's all okay.

i'm starting a new life now,

writing a different story--one you're never in,

one where i'm fine and you've never hurt me--

and a new world has opened up

i hardly think of you anymore

the smell of listerene doesn't catch me at the door,

i can breathe again when i see your name,

and i'm ready to take what's left of me and reclaim it

i'm pulling the key from the door,

standing tall and breathing deep

i'm turning from you and those long halls,

turning from all those memories and all those

lost hopes and dreams, i'm ready

i'm ready, i'm ready, i'm reclaiming that child i once was

and i'm giving her a different story

he’s golden like six pm april evenings

where the sun crests over the hill and

peers between the trees and bathes everything

ethereal and yellow and warm. his hair is

curled and tightly spun and it’s always so, so

messy and it makes me feel a little silly to think

about it. when he turns his head i catch a

glimpse of silver and, man, if my breath

doesn’t catch in my lungs. his eyes are

so pretty in the way that i can’t

remember what color they are, but i just

know that my memory of them saw them as

beautiful—i know in the way that i’d know

my mom’s voice anywhere, in the way i’d know

my best friend’s humor, in the way i’d know if i was

making my chocolate chip cookies right or not.

he’s golden like six pm april evenings and yellow

sundresses and worn yellow linoleum and

he reminds me of the earth like the way the

sun filters through the trees or the way the

fading daylight pierces through the windows and

passes through the ivy and ferns. he’s golden golden

golden and i think that i’ll always associate this

with him.

he’s tousled and messy and so, so, imperfect—

he’s tried so hard, had to work so far, and

he’s come so far, he’s grown so much, he’s

overcome it all, and he’s so, so sweet, and the

way he thinks makes sense. they say he’s weird,

they say he’s odd, but, man, if i don’t feel like

we connect so right. he’s imperfect and

he might be odd but i quite like him this way and

i feel it wouldn’t be the same if he was any

different.

he’s golden, he’s silver, the sight or thought of

him makes the breath in my lungs catch,

he’s so pretty and he’s so beautiful and i wouldn’t

change him for anything, he makes sense to me

and everything clicks and he’s golden golden

golden. he doesn’t like me and i like him and i’ll

never get beyond this point because

it’s just eight short weeks before we part for

good and i couldn’t take it if it all made sense

before it blew up in our faces. but he’s

golden, like six pm april evenings where

the sun comes rushing through the windows and

breaks through the ivy and ferns to bathe

everything in its path warm and yellow and

ethereal. he’s golden. he’s like that

and i’m just a girl, caught in the golden

sunbeams and caught with my mouth

wide open in awe, staring up

at it all bathed warm and yellow and ethereal—he’s

golden, golden, golden.

i hope no one ever makes

him feel like he’s not.

there’s no way to stop it

when it finally comes, when

it finally starts. there’s just the

point where we’re

all alone, and then there’s

this moment where it all changes and

we can’t stop it. we’re headed

downhill, speeding through the crowd and

on the edge of it. you can’t grab the handlebars

and i can’t manage the brakes. i’m free—

free falling. you’re running to catch up.

(is there a point where we meet?)

(does it dislocate a rib

(along the way?)

can we manage something small?

let’s take a break. we’re

at my apartment (it’s not real) (we’re not here at

(all. at best, we sit at a desk together

(and discuss the week’s work.) and i’m

interviewing you. you’re

alone, but you’re as

golden as i remember—tousled and messy

and golden like daylight. silver

glints in your

ears. your eyes are so pretty and i

can’t remember what color

they are. i know they’re pretty,

though, in the way that some people

know that they love their husbands and wives

even after they lose their memories. you’re

startled as i am, but you

don’t say a word. instead, i guide you

inside a place that

somehow fits me in all my

needy glory. you sit and i roll

to sit across from you. the interview

is quick and alright. you’re hired and

you move in the next day, for simplicity’s

sake. i insist that i can

shower and go to the

bathroom myself. i still need

help cleaning, and making meals, and

getting to appointments. you help with those things.

we grow together. and then comes

the hill.

sometimes it’s a literal

hill where i slip or catch a wheel on

some debris and head down,

and other times it’s me

collapsing after

standing and taking the wrong step

forward, or me

reaching for something and

falling, or me not being

able to get out of

bed, again, for the third time that week and it’s

only monday.

we’re always met with fear. i’m

always ready with

shame and

embarrassment. you meet me with an open mind and

an offer.

the reality of it is that

i don’t have this place

and we still just meet

once a week in front

of a desk, sitting side

by side and slowly

inching towards some

sort of friendship.

or, at least, acquaintanceship. i’m

not sure, yet. we

trade information back and forth and

i hold onto each glimpse of

you like a hungry man for scraps

of food.

the reality of it is that

you don’t like me and

i like you. but you don’t like me and

i’ll never find out if i’m

right or if i’m wrong because

we only have eight more weeks

together, and then we

part ways and i’ll

probably never see you

again. because you clean

houses and not people and

as hot as that is, i’m a person who might

need such services but i’d

hate to love it if you were to ever

help me in those ways.

the reality of it is that

you don’t like me and

i like you a lot and

nothing will ever come of this because

i’m afraid and i dislike asking

for help and it’s nothing more than just

a fantasy to think that one day we’d be

put together like this, me and your

sunshine self who’s

worked so hard to get to this

point, and it’s nothing more than

a fantasy to think that there’s

anything more than you not liking

me and me liking you.

i.

i wonder if you still have

the glass—my ‘i love you,’ my

loyalty, my heart, my

friendship—and i wonder

if you remember a thing about

me when you see it.

who knows?

(is it even out? or is it

(in a box somewhere, buried beneath letters and

(notes and clothes and memories and

(dust?) i wonder if you

remember all that i do

about us.

the thing is, i can’t remember

anything current for shit. i can’t remember

what day it is, or what i just said, or what my last thought was—

but i can remember her voice, i can

remember our early texts, i can

remember the hurt and the pain and the

ache ache ache of what we aren’t

anymore—and isn’t that

something?

i remember how you loved me,

but not when my next therapy appointment is.

i remember how she smells,

but not who i’m seeing for the next specialist appointment.

i remember how your laugh sounds,

but not what’s in the fridge.

i remember how she sounds when she cries,

but not what i did last week.

i remember our jokes,

but not how much money is in my wallet.

i remember how she gets angry with me,

but not what my best friend’s smile looks like.

i remember when i lost you,

but not when i last saw all my friends.

i remember the hurt and the pain and the aches and all this awful past,

but not the newest, most important things in my life of today.

when will it all go away? when will

i move on? how do i move

on? is there any way to

move on, or do i just live with this ache

rotting inside of me?

is there any end

at all?

ii.

i heard that things have changed from your husband—that

the birds are on the porch, now, and

not inside. i heard that

the dogs died, and so did many of

the cats. i heard that pete is now

twenty years old, not fifteen. i heard

that there’s only one

guinea hen, now. that you have a new cat.

that you have a cow.

i heard that

time has changed you, that

things have moved on past the point where

my memory captured it all. who

knows if you still have blue-green afternoons in

mid-october? who knows if

you do the taxes at nine am on

a saturday morning under

pink lamplight after breakfast? who knows if

the scraps still go in that pink-brown

trash can, and who knows if the

carpet still smells so bad and grabs your

feet in its hold? who knows if you’ve ripped it out?

who knows if you still have

all the same china, all the same cups, if

the water still tastes like it

washed a cat before it came to be

in your cup? who knows if

everything has changed and moved on

without me, and left me hoping for

someone to find me in the past—who knows

if i’ll be found, looking for you in those blue-green afternoons

or pink-brown mornings, or in the purple

hottub or on the toilet of your bathroom

with a bleeding knee and tears running

down my face, waiting for you to come back; who knows

if i’ll be found, and by

who. who knows? i doubt you do, with your

friend named alcohol. i doubt you will,

with your friend named alcohol. i doubt you

ever did, with your friend named

alcohol. i hate your friend named

alcohol. i hate you.

(i don’t.) (i wish i did.)

someone find me, please,

and take me home—i don’t want to be

here anymore, waiting for her to

pour the peroxide over my bloody knees or

waiting for her to come home and find me in the

mandarins or waiting for her to roll her next move and lose to me in

monopoly or waiting for her to look up at me and

smile. i’m tired of waiting. the past

doesn’t move

forward. she’s not here, and

i don’t know if she

ever was. someone come

find me,

please. i don’t know

the way out. i don’t know how

to get home. someone please

come find me. someone

take me home

please.

i.

i’m poor and they’re all rich. one of them gives me

five hundred dollars for my birthday—“because it’s a milestone.”

what do i do with five hundred dollars?

i don’t remember the way you

cared about me (i remember it not happening), but

what do i do with this? it feels

important and big, like

it should matter. does it

matter to you? do you remember

anything about me? can i even accept this when

i know you don’t care at all about me?

ii.

my mom said that mary was off today—

like she’d been drinking all morning. “but,” i said,

“she seemed normal, to me.” a beat. “i guess

“that says a lot about our relationship, if that’s normal to me.”

my mom and i laughed. the thought

that her being crazy drunk is a normal “mary”

to me—it made me ill.

iii.

i texted you, asked how you

were. you said you were good and asked how

i was. i said i wasn’t

great. you asked why, and i guess i

just wanted to feel like

we were what we used to be (close) (friendly) (talking

(to each other, still), but i explained

how i’m in a wheelchair now, and that

i haven’t been able to walk. the conversation ended after

i answered your question—“are you

“still having the issues?” like. i don’t know what, but it

kind of hurt me when you said it like

that, in the same way that a papercut hurts

when you squeeze it and watch the

blood pool, and then squirt some lemon juice on it—and

i’ve only asked you how you‘re doing

once since then. i don’t want to keep

slicing myself open for the

chance to talk to you, but, man, if

it isn’t tempting. i’m always thinking

about what we used to do,

what we used to say,

the things we used to have,

and the way we used to be, like this will

make you come back to me. like

it will change a thing.

iv.

trying something new to help

with the pain. i feel overstretched, overdone,

like i’m going to collapse with

the weight of everything. i wonder

if this will touch that—if,

in seeking solution to the

physical, i might find

something to give me a hand with these

heavy things.

i miss the certainty of

growing up healthy. i miss knowing

and having plans for my future. i miss having

the certainty in your capabilities required to save up for something like

moving out and becoming independent.

i miss not having to talk about

someone needing to take care

of me for the rest of my life, and having to

ask for help to even just move a cup of water. i miss

not being sick. i miss being okay. i miss the time where i was sick and

needed this help and was still a kid. i miss it i miss it i miss it and

i feel so awful for it, because i know it isn’t

the end of the word, but, man, if i didn’t lose more than just my mobility

when i got sick, if i didn’t lose more than just the average use of my

joints when i was born. i can’t

take it, some days, just how much i lost.

v.

the pain is still the same. it’s not

helping. what else can i do—

can i please just catch a break?

vi.

if you’ve been drunk this whole time and

you forget most of what happens,

will you remember this

and will you remember me and

will you remember us and

should i even bother holding on

to something you’ll probably forget by

tomorrow’s hangover?

vii.

i have her letters and everything i kept from

my time with her—it’s in a box, taped shut or folded over,

i can’t remember. it’s all in there, though. i

sometimes wish i’d thrown it out, but

more often than that i’m proud to say

i’ve forgotten where it is or

that it’s there.

or, at least, that’s what i wish i could write.

i really mean:

i have your letters and everything i kept from

my time with you—it’s in a box, each flap folded

over in a careful manner. it’s all there, every written note

and stamped letter and silly momento. i sometimes wish

i’d thrown it out, but more often than that i hate to say

i’d like to open it up and go through it and

write you a letter, or call you up and ask if

you’d like to have a sleepover or lunch or just go

to the library together. i always know the box and its contents

are there, on top of my dresser and

buried behind forty books and hidden under

other boxes and binders. i still remember the smell of you,

the way your hand feels in mine, the way your

voice sounds, the books and authors you like to read,

the way you like your beets and the way that night feels

at your house, under your covers, bathed in golden light and

reading our books with the cool night air coming

in through the open window from a starry blackened sky, and the

way your table shines with a layer of grease and your kitchen smells of bacon

in the mornings and hamburger grease at night, and the sound of

the evening news in the living room from where i stood in the kitchen, and the way the carpet feels under my toes and the way the plants and birds and walls

smell and feel and look, and the way the dust falls through the air in your

house and the way the afternoon comes through the windows and the trees

with a blue-green tint at four pm on a cool october afternoon, and the

way the trees and ivy yellow and green, and the sound of

the guinea hens, and the sound of cars on the gravel of your

driveway, and the smell of hay and horse shit in the horse pen, and the way you

have me water the plants and feed the birds, and the way the plants along

your driveway are mandarins and not oranges, and the way i can’t

forget a thing about you but you could forget all about me.

that’s what i mean. that’s how it is.

viii.

i want to make my own memories that i can’t seem to forget.

i want to remember forever and ever playing with the kids,

holding the cat, sitting in the dark of my room writing while

everyone else sleeps, getting crushes, helping friends,

making people smile, silly jokes, good music, eating nice

foods. i want to remember the good things, the things that might not hurt me

as much as the thought that you could

not know me at all and not

remember a part of us

while i remember

everything about you.

i.

a swelling sadness

growing deep within my chest

(pulling, pressing, pushing)

seeping into everything i

touch

ii.

i should have expected less

(i should have been hurt by less)

i know it’s not your fault

(it feels like it is, though)

why did you keep

pushing, pressing, pulling?

why did you keep

going, even beyond the initial wound?

iii.

why did the disappointment

curdle in my stomach,

grab me by the throat,

twist the knife in my stomach?

iv.

i tried so hard to

not expect, to not

hurt at the absence,

but i did! my silly heart

aches.

my silly heart—expected

too much, wanted

too much, and it aches—

too much.

(WHY COULDN’T I LET IT GO! WHY CAN’T I LET GO?)

v.

it’s

five days until

my birthday. i want to

rip my heart out, set its beating

aches and wants and wishes aside

for the week. i want to let it go,

i want to stop expecting people

to do what they’ll say and

say what they’ll do and

care enough about the

silly, inconsequential date and i

want to just!! stop feeling so awful

about it all.

vi.

can’t i just have a birthday

and have it be nice?

vii.

why am i so sad about this!

i should have expected this!

i shouldn’t be hurt by this!

(five days)

(five days—)

(can my heart)

(just take a break)

(for five days)

viii.

i’m going to love and enjoy and

cherish deeply each day of

september. i’m going to love and

enjoy and cherish deeply each

day of september. whether i like it or

not, i’m going to love and

enjoy and cherish deeply

each day of september. i have to i have to

i have to! i must to survive,

i.

i texted you last night.

the friends i asked about it

said i shouldn’t.

i told them i wouldn’t, and then

i tried to sleep, but i couldn’t stop

thinking about how close we were.

i couldn’t stop thinking about

the things we shared and the

things we said and the things we did

and then i got all nostalgic, and nostalgia,

that horrid beast, it clouded my hurt and pain.

it colored you pink, and white, and blue (the color of my love for you).

and then i opened my phone and

opened our conversation and i looked, one last

time, at how long it had been

since you last responded

to one of my texts (over a month).

i typed out a text and pressed send anyways.

i felt the regret swell deep within me

the second time i checked

to see if you had said anything back (you hadn’t). (you still)

(haven’t) (i doubt you)

(will)

i’m tired of being left behind i’m

tired of being left behind i’m tired

of being left behind i wish i wasn’t

left behind every time.

i love you (i wonder if you love me back still)

i wish i didn’t (i wonder if you don’t love me anymore)

i wish i could stop (i wonder if you ever did, and when).

ii.

i doubt that you’ll text me back

but i can’t help but wonder

what it would be like if we

started over, if you texted me back more often.

i can’t help but think of

the things i would

change about myself, the things

i would say, and then, well—you

might be angry at that, actually, i think.

you were never fond of the way i

destroyed or hid the parts of myself that

other people didn’t like

or that might have been offensive.

and once upon a time, you did

love me. and you loved the girl i was,

and not the

girl who destroyed herself to

please others. and you may not

love me anymore, but you loved me

then. (this makes me want)

(to text you back)

(even more than before)

i can’t help but

love you, it seems, even as

you don’t text me back

and leave me hanging for days, weeks at a time.

one of my friends said that

it was impossible for you

to be busy for almost two years—

so busy, in fact, that you couldn’t

respond to a simple “how are you?” for

several days. she also said this about all

of the other relationships i’ve

had that have ‘ended’ (stopped)

(stagnated) like this. she says that

i have to raise my standards.

but man if i didn’t, if

i don’t,

love you still.

how do i ever

get over that? how do i

ever stop? will i ever

stop? can i ever

stop? is there an end

in sight? is there an end

at all?

(it almost makes me sick)

(that i want to text you, to ask you)

(this question)

iii.

i had a dream this morning,

where someone loved me so

much. they loved me in a way that

made me ache, they loved me in a way that

brought me to tears when i woke.

i know it’s

impossible but

i wanted that from

you, somehow.

i’d probably just be happy if

you talked to me more

iv.

does it mean anything that

all these other relationships that have

ended (stopped)

(stagnated) like this haven’t

left me feeling so lost and wanting for

it all back with that person

like this one is?

i think my

brain is just grasping for straws, now.

but it makes me want to text you a little

more than before. does this make me

someone who enjoys inflicting

pain and sorrow on themselves?

does this craving for the chance to talk to you

make me a masochist? why won’t

this feeling go away? i want it to go away i

want it to go away

i wish you hadn’t left me behind i wish i

had some control in this i wish that maybe i

had been the one to leave you behind i wish

i wish i wish i didn’t love you so much i wish

i didn’t want to text you back all the time i wish

i didn’t feel sick to my stomach at the thought that

maybe it’s just because my birthday’s near and it always

made me feel so sad each time you forgot the date i wish

i didn’t feel this way about you i wish

i could let this go i wish

i could let you go i wish

i didn’t love you anymore i wish

i knew if you still loved me i wish

i didn’t care i wish

it didn’t hurt so badly to say that i don’t want to love you anymore i wish

that i had left you behind, so maybe this could be a little

easier to bear (than wondering what i did)

(than wondering what i said)

(than wondering if it was really you and)

(not me)

as my birthday (and the milestone) nears, i find

myself worrying, getting

preemptively sad, panicking

about an event

that hasn’t even arrived.

birthdays are like a wound to me—

a shard of glass in the hand, a knife

twisting in your

stomach, a bullet through the

chest. the entrance of the wound

is the growing pains—the

anxiety at the

thought of growing

old, of being someone new

and someone you’ve always been

until the next year.

but this time, there’s—

well, there’s an exit wound, too.

the glass slides through the top of the hand

and spikes through the palm; the knife

twists until you can see it

on the other side; the bullet

comes cleanly through your back.

let me write this out again, be a little

clearer. there’s the date, which is the glass, the knife, the bullet,

then there’s the growing pains, the entrance wound—

and then there’s you. and then, on the other side

of things, there’s the glass again, the knife once more, and the bullet,

come to bite you again, and there’s this feeling

that you won’t be happy

when that day comes

and on the days that follow. there’s this feeling

that no one’s going to

remember, that they’ll forget, and, for some reason,

this feels like a last chance—that if they forget,

if they forget this time, that that’ll be their

last chance. that there’s not going to be

anything else

on the other side.

(but does the glass, the knife, the bullet, do they have to)

(go all the way through? can’t they just)

(rot inside of you?)

and before, all the years before, you

used to be so sad, so anxious, so worried,

and when people forgot (or made like it was)

(any other day, like it wasn’t)

(you being markedly unthesamed), it felt like

glass through the back of your hand,

a knife to the stomach,

a bullet to the chest.

but the wound was only one-sided, and

all you had were growing pains (that healed) and

the memory of being forgotten or

dismissed (that rotted, rotted, rotted, continued to rot inside of you)

again and again and again

each year.

and, yeah, maybe it’s

healthier to have the

glass go all the way through,

or the knife come out on the other side,

or the bullet wink back at you from behind,

but, man, if you don’t feel so sick

for so much longer before. how do you cope

with the thought of it never happening again

when you’ve collected all these scars

from all the years before? how do you cope

with not having the people

who remembered every time

show up again?

this year feels like a year of

lasts and ends and stops and brick brick brick walls. i

feel like, at every turn, i am told

that this is my last

chance, my last turn, my last

time, that i’ll never

feel this way again, that i should

enjoy this while it lasts, because

it’s the last i’ll ever have—and i can’t help but

let any joy i could have had

rot, rot, rot inside of me, clutched in the

grubby hands of anxiety and panic as i

face that this is the

last. the last of it. the last time, the

last point, the end, the stop, that

a brick wall is being built

right in front of my eyes as i’m

told to enjoy the inside, because i’ll be

stuck outside of this wall

for the rest of my life

and i won’t have another chance.

and maybe that’s the exit wound—

maybe it isn’t their last chance,

or yours, but

mine.

maybe this is this year’s

wound: the date, the glass, the knife, the bullet,

then the growing pains, and the entrance wound, and then—

me. and on the other side is the exit wound,

the glass shining back at me, the knife twisted through and

pushed too far, the bullet come back to wink at me, and my

last chance.

maybe that’s the exit wound,

maybe that’s the exit wound,

maybe that’s the exit wound,

(how do you cope)

(how do i cope)

(with the exit wound)

i.

we were just friends but the

hurt the hurt the hurt

(i said it was fine and i meant it but it hurts)

(why does it hurt so bad)

i told you it was fine and i still mean that,

because if you’re busy i don’t want to keep you

or make you feel bad, but some

part of me that i wish

i could kill (oh, she says i should keep it alive) wishes

(wishes wishes wishes) that you’d

want to be kept, want to waste

time with me.

and we were just friends but the hurt doesn’t

hurt any less because of it. i wish i wish i wish

i knew how to say this

and not make a fool of myself. i wish i could

tell you in a way that

wouldn’t hurt you and would say what i mean—i want

to say: honestly it’s

fine if you’re busy, and it’s fine if you

didn’t want to talk to me, but some part of me

(i wish i could kill this part off) (i am ashamed of this part of me)

wishes you made the time or the effort to waste

time with me. and also, i want you to tell me if you

didn’t want to talk to me at all, actually, and i

want you to tell me if i was

annoying, or clingy, or too too too much. and i promise

that i’ll be happier if you respond to that honestly (even if it’s

a yes, you were, or, yeah, things changed and i don’t love you anymore) than

if you tried to apologize or talk to me more.

can i say that? i don’t want to lose you.

(it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. i wish it didn’t hurt so bad.)

ii.

sitting in short shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt,

in my bed, from where i haven’t moved

in about a week (i got sick, i got weak, i can’t stand),

and i’m trying not to cry

as “supercut” by lorde comes on—

i’m reading the business textbook, writing up

the vocab, just sitting here, contemplating

texting you

and reaching out

and asking how you’ve been.

and i remind myself of what a friend said—

that i’ve got to up my standards,

and that if you don’t reply for days at a time,

for months and months on end, that, maybe,

i should just

let you go

(i don’t want to let you go) (i don’t want to let you go).

and then this song comes on, and i suddenly

feel like crying. and i just.

i can’t help the feeling that rises up in my chest,

that makes me feel like i’ll explode, that

makes me want to cry and ruin this

expensive textbook. and i can’t even

focus on the vocab, i’m so—

i’m such a wreck

over you. we were just friends but

damn if that didn’t mean just as much for me

as anything else could have.

“’cause in my head (in my head, i do everything right) / when you call (when you call, i’ll forgive and not fight) / because ours are the moments i play in the dark / we were wild and fluorescent / come home to my heart”

and i can’t help but wonder—

i’ve been wondering for days, now,

weeks, months—what i did wrong.

you said, at the beginning, that it was you and

not me. (but at least seven other things)

(just like this)

(have happened to me—they stop talking,)

(they stop responding, they say it’s)

(them, and not)

(me,) SO RIDDLE ME THAT, HUH? tell me

why this has happened so much—is it

coincidence? because i thought

coincidence was when it

happened twice. when it happens

over seven times, is it really

you and not

me? whose fault is it then? i

have this feeling that it

might be mine.

but my friend, she says that i have to raise my standards.

i still find myself unlocking my phone and navigating to our long-dead

conversation, and thinking thinking thinking

“’cause i my head / in my head, i do everything right / when you call, i’ll forgive and not fight / all the moments i play in the dark / wild and fluorescent / come home to my heart, oh”

they ask me what it is that i’ve

got. they ask why i have to wear these

braces. they ask me why i’m so

tired, why i don’t play like i

used to, anymore. they ask me why i can’t

stand, why i can’t walk very

far.

“i’ve got hypermobility,” i say. “and something

“else, but we’re still looking into that.” i look them in the

eyes, with an easy, careful

smile.

“what’s that?” they ask. “hypomobility,” they say, as if just

by saying it (and incorrectly), they’ll be

granted some great knowledge. well, i guess they will.

“hyper,” i say. “hypermobility. i’m too stretchy.” i

pause. i watch their blank

stare. “there’s this thing,” i continue, with that same practiced,

easy, careful smile, “in my dna—it makes it so that i stretch

“t o o f a r

“at my joints. i hyperextend things often—fingers, thumbs,

“knees—among other things. it causes

“a lot of pain.”

“oh,” they say, blinking

owlishly

at me. “so when do you

“get better?”

(my smile stretches, t o o t h i n , and it breaks)

i laugh, and it makes me

sick. “i won’t,” i say, smiling a little

wider, a little more carefully, as if

this will take off the edge. “i’ll have this my whole

“life.”

they quiet, and they look at anywhere but me.

“but,” they flounder, like a fish

out of water, “can’t they make it better? give you a pill,

“give a transplant—”

“no,” i cut them off. my voice is tired. “there isn’t

“a pill, a cure, a transplant. it’s a forever thing.”

they sit there, thinking, stewing.

and then their face lights up.

“have you tried tylenol? ibuprofen? gabapentin?

“what about acupuncture, herbal teas, or aromatherapy? have you—”

i laugh, cutting them off. something in me tries to

sour, but i hold it

tight in my hands, unwrinkled and

untwisted—hoping, for the love of God, that i don’t

let go, and have it twist up and

let me be angry. “i’ve tried just about everything,” i say.

“all that i can do at this point is

“strengthen the muscles around my joints

“as much as possible, and wear my braces, and

“accommodate.”

they pause, flounder a little. they open their mouth,

close it, open it again, and—

“so when do you get better?”

i stretch my practiced, easy, careful smile across my face.

i stretch it far t o o t h i n , and i change the subject.

“but how have you been? i’d like to hear about you.”

and i would—it’s true. i’d like to hear about them.

i’d like to hear about them.

i’d like to hear about them—

anyone but me,

and anything but

how they would fix

what i have.