you can tell from the state of my room / that they let me out too soon

This morning I woke up earlier than I needed to, gave the boy a brief cuddle and grabbed two towels, primed for the longest, most satisfying shower of my life. Upstairs, at some unsure moment between flushing the toilet and turning the tap on, I got the distinct impression of having been slapped in the face.

That sudden, whingey protest, the indignity of it, the pain of someone striking you.

But no one did, so why that feeling? Why the sudden unbidden wobbly lip, the lumpy throat?

Back downstairs, no shower. Back into bed, at which point the boy is conscious enough to ask me what's wrong and at that unsure moment between me beginning to speak and the end of the sentence, I'm crying like a child.

Crying like I haven't cried in, ooh, about a year.

*****

So maybe it's poetic justice, or perhaps this time of year just really isn't good for me. Seems like every time of year is bad for me recently, but Sunday is the first anniversary of my love affair with happy pills and, though we've been on a break the last six months or so, I think it's time that we got back together.

I miss them. Not the yawning. Or the tiredness, or the dependency, or the way it feels when I forget them or the way it feels to tell my parents or the look it earns me when I first tell someone.

Pills? Wow. Like, anti-depressants? Wow. So, are you like, fucked up, or just weak?

Weak. Weak weak weak. For all my fighting talk I am nothing more like that. One year on and cigarettes are no longer an adequate replacement for scars. Neither is alcohol an adequate replacement for actual help, you see, the hangover is sort of a signpost reminding me that I'm not in fact a spy, or a sexbomb, or a shaman like I thought I was the night before and at the end of the smoke they're all still dead. And I still feel weak.

But I was even weaker when I convinced myself I was better. I miss the lying to myself.

*****

I do this or I give up entirely. I go to live in a hippy commune, or join a cult, or become a slut or a heroin addict or an air hostess. I drop out of uni and eventually I'll die, which of course is the only thing not up for debate here. I'll die no matter what so why the fuck can't I die happy? Or at least on enough substances to feel happy.

Going back to the doctor on this, my anniversary, this week of all weeks, admitting that I can't do this, that I have fucked up, that I do give up and give in is actually the only thing I'm strong enough to do.

So here we go.

Again.