Think

To not know anything about the world is the best innocence there can be, but also your greatest downfall. I understand to know is to believe and to believe is to think there are greater things beyond our lives. You could pick up everything one day and leave, leave your job, leave your life, your identity if you wanted to. However, it is not that simple as is everything in this world. The greatest gift is to think, but it depends on the way you use it. Yes, you could drop everything and leave, but because you think you know what would happen. If you are lucky people will miss you. If you are lucky, your pets would wonder where you went and why you didn’t take them, and if you had children they would wonder when you are coming back.

I believe this is why people stay where they are. Our minds, our brains hold us down. I have desires to leave this town but there are so many things that keep me here. I wonder, could I find these things somewhere else? Perhaps I could move to Tennessee, and have a ranch full of animals that are full of life. I wonder, could I be full of life one day? My brain keeps me shackled to the ground but I believe I have had enough. My brain is disordered , yes, but it is also beautiful and full of dreams. I love the beach, but I yearn for places with peaks and wispy trees. I wish to live in a place that is poetic and dreamy.

I understand that there are many things out there for me, and I am wondering if I’m beginning to outgrow people. I wonder if it is a bad thing, I feel it is because it plants worry and guilt in my chest. I have learned to love and be loved but sometimes mistakes can cloud that. I wonder if the love I have for him will be enough. Is it an act of love to hold on or to leave? I do not believe I have any fight left in me. Yes, I love him, but has he ever loved me? Did he love me when he decided to hurt me? I know I have this huge heart that is meant to love, but I want to close it off. Not entirely, but maybe just to him.

I want him to understand my brain and understand my tears, maybe he isn’t mature enough to see that and maybe I’m not clean enough to bear it. I am confused and scared, I am tired. I wish he could understand that my brain is also in need of love and not deprivation or lies or broken promises. I have vowed not to repeat the same cycles as my mother and father. If this boy doesn’t become the man I need him to be, then I will take myself out of the cycle. I want to go to places and see things, and meet new people. I want love, I want friendship, I want a family of my own one day. I want to embody my poetry, I want to be a woman and not a girl.

I know my body is whole. I know my brain is intact. I know this because I think. My brain never stops thinking, I never stop wondering, or dreaming. My head is always in the clouds, I believe that to be true. I have not stopped thinking since the day I read my first book. I hope I never stop writing, and yearn for more. My tongue has tasted literature, I have written poems sweeter than honey, I have sang louder songs than train whistles. I am the way that I am because of my disorders but also because of me. I love as much as I breathe. I know I am intense, but I know I am brave. I am still alive.

I know that one day my body will decompose and so will my thoughts. One day my brain will just humm and I will not overdose on my pain and repressed memories. I pray that one day I will make my mother proud and I will give her all the things she came here for. I have the weight of a thousand generations of thoughtful women on my back. I am whole, I am here, and I am as sweet as my poetry.