I will not lie to you,
I have chewed my nails
down to nubs
to keep from grabbing
a fresh cigarette.

I have wept
before pieces
of chocolate cake
and crusty heels
of bread.

I have powered through
eight kinds of pain
to run one more mile
lift five more pounds
bend one more inch.

I have force-fed myself
video
after
video
in my valiant attempts
to not make the call,
to not send the email,
to stop my thoughts
from veering off
the straight and narrow
into the Land of the Dark Places.

I have braved rush-hour traffic
and hostile crowds
and disinterested rooms
to move from one world
to another.

And you don't want to know
how many buckets
of bile and confusion
I've bailed
from the deep
and overflowing reservoirs
of my head and my heart
onto god-knows-how-many
blue-lined spiral-bound pages.

They are nothing,
NOTHING,
compared to the exquisite torture
of sitting still
and doing
absolutely
nothing.

Sometimes
the hardest thing about change
is slowing down enough
to see
exactly
what you need
to do next.

xxx
c

Image by Sarah G via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.