Promises

I promise I am not depressed.

Really, I promise.

I promise I do not search for death

or peaceful blankness between

the cold sheets of a bed

I rarely sleep in.

I promise I am not alone,

This time, I really mean it.

My mind does not create a darkness

so profound in depth that I walk it

at night, trying to find the

voices of unknown people who say

they care.

But never search for me beneath the covers.

I promise I am not sad.

You just have to believe me,

The tears I weep are not of sorrow,

but of a loss,

really.

There has been a death in the family.

I am not sure,

when the time of death occurred,

but it has affected me greatly.

My love for the simple things in life:

the smell of roses, the green of leaves,

the breath that fills me and empties me,

fills and empties again.

I promise I am not a sadist.

You remember blood makes me sickly.

And the pain only blocks out

the grief of a loss that never could be

contained. Besides, candlewax doesn’t scar.

Doesn’t leave behind a mark.

I promise you the world,

in all of its entirety.

I promise not to moan or

weep in your presence, for my grief

always brought you pain, which you

misinterpreted as depression.

I promise you my face,

which will be molded as a mirror.

To smile as you smile and laugh as you laugh,

Though your soul and its source I can not duplicate,

for I am the shallowest of mirrors.

I promise you purity from all horrors.

I will be your shield from death.

Even when my legs twitch over the fallen and

forgotten chair, or our tub’s porcelain white is forever

stained pink by my disobedient veins or the world crumbles

at my feet, I promise.

I will always keep this promise. Till Death do us part.