ten
she enjoys the simple luxuries:
coke in a can,
yellow straw,
from the musty smelling cellar
her grandmother keeps clean.
twelve
playgrounds still excite her –
the blood blisters
left from the monkey bars,
less visible than
her first stretch mark.
fourteen
she discovers how to take
the head out of a razor,
how she can take more than
two painkillers,
and she is weightless.
sixteen
she learns to grieve
through writing and scratching
herself with the back of a pen –
deep enough to hurt,
not enough to scar.
eighteen
she is officially
two months on Zoloft.
she is a petrified zombie,
frozen by the concept of time,
limping through the daily motions.
twenty
her pills mimic a rainbow
as one too many slide down her throat.
she is a sexual assault survivor,
a burden, just another
item to add to the laundry list
check.
today
she realizes she is not a monster;
she is human.
her illness is a burden on herself,
but she,
she is not.