reactive

1.
                      "i worry about you."
                      "it's okay. i worry more."

the children make me sob.
once upon a time i was like that but i don't remember it. there are burnt patches in my head that block my inner eye from peering into a happier place.
and the children, they have smiles wiped messily across their faces – like when you drop the honey jar and it spills, sticky sweet, and you try to clean it up with a cloth but it only smears over the floorboards.

it's not cancer, no. it's not anything tangible.
but whatever it is, it's surely racked through my body like an illness and the glands behind my ears are swollen, as a sign that something inside me is still
fighting.


2.
                      "you look so tired."
                      "i seem to have an on/off relationship with sleep
                      it's not good for me."

i can't breathe without my lungs collapsing, ribs fracturing, heart squashing into a small bleeding blob.

when i was eleven, i used to pray for sleep. i'd clasp my hands together, as darkness clutched my vision to its chest, and mouth, please, please let me sleep tonight, god. i promise i won't think bad thoughts, if you'd just let me sleep. please. but it never worked that well, probably because i was praying to someone i didn't fully believe existed.
and yet, now, i strangle sleep by its neck and force it to embrace me, even with its nightmare eyes and claustrophobic smile. and i still can't shake the smothering blanket of fatigue.


3.
                      "when do you want to die?"
                      "yesterday."

i think i'll leave with the wrong impressions i've always kept tucked in my belt like daggers.