Arachnid?

when i meet her tonight, she will be just my mental illness, the way she’s always been. beautiful and perfect and thin. she shows up in every two-a.m to torture me. she is who creates effortlessly, who isn’t a financial burden, who never scratched the car, who never let her life spiral out of control, who was adult by the age of ten. she is exactly what i’ve always seen, every day, reflected somewhere in a looking glass in my brain; the girl i should be. the better friend. my enemy. 

she is not unfamiliar. it’s good to know i’d be successful. it’s good to see me smile like that. it’s good she’s happy. she says she has everything. never lost herself in the dark like i did. never got her wires crossed; never spent too much time on bad things and not enough on survival. was always effortless, woke up and felt rested. 

and i think four years ago i would have screamed at her but today when i see her it’s okay. i ask her if it’s been fun and she says of course, because she’s done all the things i was too anxious for. it’s okay. i’m glad she didn’t suffer like that. i’m glad she’s got it all wrapped up in a tiny blue box.

but i didn’t. i didn’t. there are things, small precious things that no one else will ever understand - and they are what you keep when you have pulled yourself from the darkness. they are the rainbow spill of a puddle the first time you felt like you were back in your body. the soft touch of the first person you realized you could cry on the shoulder of. the gentle hiss of tea, or the running of shower water, or the one moment on a tuesday where it was kind-of okay. these gasps of air that come bursting into a life so empty. it’s hard to explain the quality of a moment that’s finally normal. it’s hard to explain why normal is important.

she doesn’t have that. she doesn’t know what it’s like to pull yourself out of it. never found solace in a strange thing. never found love where there was no love to give. never scraped herself up and kept walking no matter how badly all the pieces fit. these small intangible victories that no one else will ever understand the strength needed to finally be winning.

she’s always here. she’s always here and better and smarter and more focused and ambitious and generous and all the things i should be.  

but i could also be dead. i could be a tombstone. i could be curled up in a room that never shuts the lights off, with no strings allowed. i could be tube-fed. i could be bloodstain, or dry rot, or much, much worse. i know i’m not her. but it’s a miracle i’m alive at the end of the day.