I’m learning what it is
to be helpless
to only have control over
my own mind – no, actually that
grip is too tentative, sometimes
not even that.
I’m learning what it is to be
help-able.
to not have the strength to
find food in the kitchen or
even walk across the room
to be unable to mumble out words
to form a vague shape of
the cloud in my head.
it is hard not to feel ashamed, not to feel
like a trembling child, when my husband
leads me to the bathroom by the hand
strips me down, gently draws me a bath
and helps lower my traitorous body
feeds me cheese and crackers
by hand as my strength too slowly
slips back. it is hard not to feel ashamed
when my apartment is so dirty that I
can’t work or think or eat or breathe
that my mother has to come over to clean
because I don’t have the capacity
to do it myself. it is hard not to feel
ashamed when our ceiling is falling in
and all I can do is beat my fists against
the floor, knowing I can’t move us
since packing two boxes makes me dizzy
for the rest of the day.
it is hard not to feel ashamed
when my friends come from every
direction, New York, North Carolina, to pack me
and move me, and unpack me again
since the very air I’m breathing is sapping
the health from my body.
it is hard not to feel ashamed, to need
help so desperately, to know that I would be
absolutely f****d without it. that probably
I would survive. but I absolutely would not
be truly living. it’s hard
not to feel ashamed.
but slowly, gradually
ever so softly, there’s another feeling creeping
over my skin, one so foreign that I don’t
know what to do with it, don’t have a mental
cubbyhole for it to live in
so I’m having to build one
from scratch. it’s overwhelming, but not
in a bad way. overwhelming like the bright
of the sun on a summer day, shocking yet
warm on your skin. it feels like–like–
like I could almost maybe
be worth it for someone
to help, to love
when I can’t give anything back
when I’m so helpless
I’m finally help-able
even when I can’t bring myself
to say anything other than
“why?”