they'll never understand it like we can.
they can watch and sympathize and they can care,
but they can't understand,
not like we can.
they ask you how your day is and for the first time in a month
the answer - "fine" - isn't a lie
and your day isn't great, it isn't spectacular
it's just fine
and yet it feels like you're breathing again
even though all you are
is fine.
but the next day, you can feel it the moment you wake up
ten minutes too late, with rust in your eyelashes
the mirror is screaming at you and every inch of your body
just feels wrong, wrong, wrong
they can listen, but they'll never know how it is
to feel it everywhere, scratching at your skin
clawing at your throat, weighing on your tongue
from your wrists to your toes to your hair, clinging like a parasite
and you start to think
no amount of showering could
ever make you fine again.
they can ask, but they'll never quite get
how it feels to not to know how long it'll be around for this time
whether you can wake up tomorrow
feeling just fine again
or whether it'll take all december,
until the snow seems to purify the ground and
your life.
(it's never as far away as you think.)
