Ode to My Past: The Week That Still Lasts

I remember the last night I spent in the hospital

Sitting on my windowsill like I was on top of the world,

When really the world was on top of me

And yet, I couldn’t cry

I remember thinking about how much I missed my friends back home

But how much I would miss the ones I  made here

How I would no longer laugh during lunch about crazy conversation topics

Or enjoy sitting amongst them watching classic Disney movies,

But rather be back home,

Alone with my thoughts.

But most of all, I would miss the group therapy

Where we shared every intimate detail about ourselves, feeling free and safe for the first time

I remember the constant reminder on my wrist as to where I was

Just because

I remember the nurse with the southern accent who told me “you gotta get out of here and get better because you have so much potential, life gets better”

And yet I still couldn’t cry

I remember the pain I saw in my mother’s eyes

The raw emotion spewing from her lips when I told her I overdosed

That I chose to try to take away her little girl

And I remember the tears streaming down my father’s cheeks

As he hugged me for the first time since I had been hospitalized

And yet I never cried.

And as I sit here writing about the people I miss,

The chances I didn’t take,

And the influences that keep me alive

I can’t help but cry