i really don't give a fuck if it's the shittiest poem i have ever written in my entire life.
and i've been sweating bullets and putting off writing even a semblance of what has been some of my most trying times for years so. this first step hopefully, will be the first of many.
letter from a doctor
dear ashley,
i'll never forget the first time we met.
you came into my office
with a cheerleading bag and pon poms shrugged
over your shoulder. mascara cast shadows
down your face. you looked around my room
carefully before you sat down. you said
with the confidence each seventeen-year-old
is assured that they have:
"there better not be any damn cameras in here"
as you crossed your legs and twitched
your face in disgust.
i assured you there were not.
"good. because i'm not fucking crazy.
let's get this over with"
you snapped.
you dictated the our first session.
asked me more questions about the validity
of my degrees than my professors ever did.
but
anytime i mentioned the word
anxiety
you would pull back from me like i had
slapped you across the mouth
wounded and vulnerable
embarrassed
"i don't have anxiety" you
snapped. "i just happened to be
stressed out. i have an AP english test tomorrow
and unless you know shit about hemingway
i've go to go"
and you left. i hoped that you were one of those
who really meant what they said
that you didn't need the help
a stranger like me to talk to
and would never have to return but
the next day
your mother called and told me that
you drove to the school parking lot
like im sure you did any other day but you
were shrieking
immobilized
swearing to God that you
were losing your mind that you
were about to die
and if she didn't kill you
you would pull the trigger yourself
you passed out from exhaustion
on your steering wheel and i
steered your mother away from her own
personal breaking point
"what had happened
to my perfect daughter" she asked as she
gasped for air. "when and why
did she become so scared
to breathe"
i couldn't answer her. i held the phone like
a lifeline.
it took you months of sessions
to finally lay back in my chair you were
too scared to relax
but when you finally did that day in
january you started to sob
it was the first time you had lain anywhere
in three months
you told me you'd been sleeping in a fetal position
in your bed against the wall
you'd wake up stiff and broken like
your spirit
you had a billion concerns
wrapped up in your small frame
"i'm going to have to go to community college"
you declared. "there is no way i will make it
alone. i'll be here forever and be a drain to my
parents and i'll die a complete loser"
i told you to think rationally.
you told me you were.
after we had finally started making progress
your mother called and told me that
your friend had passed away, unexpectedly
i told her to keep a close eye on you
and to be there if you wanted to talk
but instead you tried to follow the leader
dance in her footsteps that lead straight
to heaven
i never make house calls but your mother pleaded
it was 1 am on a monday night
i drove the 15 minutes between point a and b like
a bat out of hell
you were hanging like a broken ornament
on the overpass to I 75
with your family huddled by the forest
heralding me with songs of horror and grief
too scared to get close to your nearly lifeless body
too scared to leave you to plunge into oblivion
they teach you in textbooks
how to host an intervention
it usually involves a well lit room,
tea,
comfy couches,
and caring individuals in on the secret.
they don't prepare you for
coaxing an upper middle class black girl
with so much promise
with everything in the world
in her grasp
down from the ledge
i couldn't let you be a hood ornament
for an unsuspecting driver
i couldn't let your mother and father down
who put 18 years of their heart and soul
into to their "perfect little girl"
who simply could not take the pressure
of being perfect anymore
i couldn't let you leave that way
body flung downward
soul flying upwards
they didn't teach me in my doctorate
but i'm sure you don't
get to heaven that way
i don't remember how we got you
back on solid ground. and i don't
remember what i said. and i don't
think any of my formal training was
put to use that night. i just remember
the next day you and your mother
sat in my office
both wearing pearls and polos and pencil skirts
as if the night before hadn't happened
but i couldn't pretend
i told you that maybe you need to go somewhere
and get the help i couldn't offer
you looked to your mother who sat stoic
silent tears swam onto her blouse
you looked back at me and asked
with the most desolate face
i had ever seen
"will God forgive me because
I thought
He was letting me
drown"
for the rest of my life, ashley,
i will never forget that moment
when i set my profession
my degrees
and my title aside
the three of us sat and cried
grabbed hands and
prayed
-----------------------------------------
A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him up and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Mark 4:37-40
