lose, when i play your game.

my hands are heavy and slow, they are disproportionately large and my fingers are swollen.

my joints are fused, i cannot walk like i once could. my body aches and even standing up is more of a task than i would like to admit.

you bring to me the idea of youth. once, an unthinkable miracle. now, closer and closer to a possibility.

i can fly. i can close my long-lashed eyes, suck in my round tummy, go up on my tip-toes, push off and fly away. i can go anywhere as long as my eyes are closed. but what is the point? i can't see where i am, or have been, or am going. i can only feel the wind rushing through my hair and the flips my stomach does as i weave in and out of moist clouds. i have considered the idea that i am insane.

you ground me, i am nearing confidence of my sanity but i miss the wind and the clouds and the possibility that i am different. special.

i am ill. i have an overactive imagination. i am constantly in a state of paranoia. i imagine everyone is looking at me, talking about me. i am chronically depressed. i have an erratic sleeping pattern; fourteen hours, four hours. i obsessively organize, i have control over some things. i imagine you don't love me, this is a joke. i am the punchline. there is no such thing as too good to be true.

you lock me up, i am safe behind bars. blankets restrict my movement. my body aches too much to move anyway, ever since i stopped flying. but they're making it hard to breath. i push upwards and you push me down, you're stradeling me and holding me into place. i am confident of your love for a second and i try to explain my fears, thinking you will hear them and save me. your destiny is as my salvation. you get upset and i am on top of you. holding you down with all my might. fighting off your fists. this is my story, i am the oppressed. let me tell it.

i am so caught up in my oppression, so caught up in labels and stereotypes and roles. so caught up in my confusion and anxiety that i can barely even see yours. i can barely even see you.

this is a love letter, this is an apology, this is everything i have- for you.