Back on the Couch

I’m twirling my great-grandmother’s ring around my finger, grinding in burns; back on the couch where tears have been shed and promises were made that were always broken.

Back on the couch; where I spill my heart out to your calm, reassuring eyes, and lock myself back into my little dark womb when I see your annoying, quick hand move across the paper.

But I can’t tell you… about the war in my head. I can’t tell you… About all the pills I never wanted to swallow but did anyway. Back on the couch, the only thing I want is to know when it will happen again.

Because I don’t want it to just happen, I hate surprises. Back on the couch I am wondering when they will have to drag me through those glass doors again – kicking, swearing – when they will have to strap me down again, feed me pills, never leave me the f**k alone.

Back on this ugly old couch, I can’t – I don’t want to tell you that I’m hurting. I don’t want to tell you that I was up all night slashing pretty patterns into my legs.

I can’t tell you why this happened. Because I don’t know… I don’t know why, when, where – I just can’t pin down that moment where everything crashed down and left me only with this chronic emptiness. It’s a conundrum, you tell me. But really it’s just me decaying and now I’m wondering whether you can smell it yet, whether the stench sticks to this disgusting, stained couch of yours.

I can’t tell you that I’d rather be the perfect wife, the daughter picked out of a catalogue, the successful b***h who flaunts her designer suits all over the place.

I can’t tell you that I want to let this go. Yes – it’s ambiguous, paradoxical; completely absurd. But really. It’s not like I have a choice. All I can tell you is that I swallowed the pills you prescribed; I write my journal every night, I’ve started eating again.

All I can tell you is that I’ve been good – I haven’t snorted cocaine in six months, I haven’t drunk in two, haven’t torn out my hair in a week.

And yet here I am back on this couch, a rubber band barely holding together my ever-thinning hair, caught in a daze of a three-day coke binge, forever twirling that ring around my skeleton finger.

Because, whether you realize it or not – Me sitting on this couch; slits of eyes, trying not to cry, and you – endlessly moving that pen back and forth, trying to analyze my ugly insides… All this is just a network of miscommunications.

Reviews

[Flo_writer]

Miscommunication can lead to seriously troubled outcomes. This was darkly intense. Intrigueing at the beginning and gripping at the end. A read every sentence impatiently waiting to find out where it was going and was luridly satisfed. Well done.

[Adept]

Emotions were beautifully written and the character's feeling of looking ugly to those around her are expressed very well.

[DiggeyEleven]

Wow, that was beautiful, dark, full of pain and suffering. Every image strong, every bit of anger that pours from your characters words noticeable and heart wrenching. Good break from the common "poem," this was an amazing piece. I love your details, it added so much to that finishing touch, that broken soul who tried to be "good" but lost in the end.