On the Day You Think You’re Better

On the day your think you're better,

you envision a cliff and you are standing at its edge.

It is not a cliff for diving,

for it is too high up for that.

The force of impact when you hit the dark water below

would kill you instantly,

like the hard fall from a skyscraper,

only to find the remains of a desperate jumper

who met their fate against the city's sidewalk.

No, you are the focal point of this story.

And you are not the tragedy of a human you once were.

You are the hero standing at the cliff's edge

wearing some "Gone with the Wind" type dress.

You are now the person who can get through most mornings

without feeling sick to your stomach,

because you remembered all the regret you dreamed

from yet another black night of shaky sleep.

You are a new version of an old you,

you actually like,

before your fall.

Before the screaming with a closed mouth.

You are at the cliff's edge and you are not going to jump.

And your mom asks if you even need to keep seeing your therapist.

And you are actually able to answer, "Probably not?"

It is a question, because in this moment

you are checking to see if you are better,

that you are, in fact, once again "normal".

And your mom may not answer,

and your mom may just smile a genuine smile at you.

All the answers peeking through her white teeth,

reminding you of stark, white cliffs

against a dark sea.

And you may think that you are better.

Whatever that even means.

And maybe you are,

"better",

I mean.

Then you remember that sometimes

you still feel like that jumper.

The one policemen and women have nightmares about.

The one they have talked to for hours,

thinking that they are getting through to them.

Crying, "Think of all you have yet to be!"

And they mean these words.

They want the jumper to see beyond the dark water below.

Yet the jumper does the only thing they know how to in times like these.

They look into the policemen and women's eyes,

silently saying sorry

and

they

jump.

That night the policemen and women cry behind closed doors,

with naked dreams of black waters

against white cliffs too high to jump from.

And here you are,

thinking you are better,

wishing you didn't have to think of jumping in the first place.