The A to Z of You and Me

~ ~ ~

I know exactly what you’d be saying to me now.

You’d be telling me that I have to try.

To try to try.

But I want to give up. I want to just lie here, in this bed, in this room, with nothing to look at but the wall and the window, the magnolia tree beyond.

A little robin’s flitting in and out of the branches. That’s enough for me. Away she goes. She’ll be back.

So now — familiar thoughts start to build up. They never leave me alone. What have I got to keep them down? You? If I could sit here and think of you, I would.

No, no. I can’t go there.

Sheila understands. She knows there’s a problem. But what answers does she have for me? The same old ideas. Stupid mental exercises like the A to Z game.

Maybe the older patients are content to keep themselves occupied with parlour games. But I don’t want any of it. I’m forty. My mind’s too active. I need it deadening.

I want to ease the mental churn. The foam. I want it all to stop.

You have to try. You have to keep going forward.

You never let me get away with anything.

You’re better than this.