She Stretches Out Across Your Sheets; She’s All Legs And Red Lipstick. You Don’t Remember When She

She stretches out across your sheets; she’s all legs and red lipstick. You don’t remember when she got here, but you know she’s not leaving yet. She reaches out, runs a hand through your hair. She smirks, purrs: “Just stay in bed.” She curls up on your chest, clothed in other people’s diamonds and a long, black dress. Her fingers play invisible piano keys across your collarbones and she plants kisses on your neck when you should be taking a shower, getting dressed. You can’t get a word in edge-wise because she’s constantly asking you: “Remember that one time..?” And your mouth doesn’t work. And your brain doesn’t think. And are your eyes blinking? I don’t know. When was the last time you ate? She’s there when you try to return that call, when you go to put on your shoes. She powders her nose and gives you sideways glances at the liqour store. She laughs at jokes you don’t catch. She traces your lips with a well-manicured nail, asks you constantly to forgive her. She never apologizes. She never changes. When she falls asleep beside you, you can’t do anything but stare at her or the ceiling or her or the ceiling or her or the ceiling— She keeps you awake with her constant shifting. In the morning, you are empty and nauseous, with an ache behind your eyes and the panicked feeling that you’re wasting the best years of your life. Slowly. Pointlessly. One day at a time. Your friends tell you to leave her, but it’s not that easy. You don’t remember a Before and you can’t imagine an After. So, you make a quiet life together, just the two of you. You sleep in until noon and stay up drinking every night. You quit your part-time job to spend every day with her. Until she gets bored, and she always gets bored. When she does, she escalates. A little cocaine. Some scratch marks down your legs. Waking up in the bathtub, shaking. Those pills look just like candy, don’t they? But, she reaches out, runs a hand through your hair. She smirks. Purrs: “Just stay in bed.” They compare her so often to a little black rain cloud, a wilting flower—but she is so much more complex. Infinitely more tragic. She’s the feeling you get at a strangers funeral, like maybe you should cry or just not be there. My Depression is the first person I ever fell in love with. And together, we are wasting the best years of my life. Slowly. Pointlessly. One day at a time— Those pills look just like candy, don’t they?

excerpt from my novel TL Jablonowski (via littlevirtue)