Therapy Session

Imagine a balloon, he said.

Picture all your grief,

The guilt, the sorrow.

Inside you, sitting in a 

     Bucket.

Pen twirling in his hand

Eyes careful and calculating,

He told me to fill up my balloon.

Transfer all those emotions-

The guilt. The grief. The sorrow-

Into the balloon, that's floating next to 

     You.

Watch them flow-

The guilt. The grief. The sorrow-

From being trapped inside you,

Into this balloon, and let it

Simply float 

     Away.

The worst therapist ever

sitting in front of me.

His hair stringy and greasy

Wire glasses hiding his dollar sign stare.

This couch reeks of sweat and regret

Why am I here, I don't deserve to be here

It should've been

     Me.

A cough. A sniff. 

He clears his throat and attempts to

Stare into my soul but

There's nothing there.

Nothing left anymore. 

It jumped out of me when you 

     Jumped.

I always said one day we'd fly away together...

Not like this. Not like that.

You spread your wings

Only they didn't catch the wind and you

     Fell.

A downward spiral

Accelerating faster faster

Until suddenly

     Still.

He told me to fill a bucket with

My guilt. My grief. My sorrow.

That I could put it all inside this fictitious balloon

And watch it dissipate into thin air.

I look up. I stare. I blink. I finally 

     Speak.

I am the bucket,

Red and shiny and capable of

Handling anything coming my way but

I am not filled with these emotions,

I have been 

     Consumed.

It's not that I am bogged down by

This muddy sorrow, guilt and grief.

It's that this overflowing pain has turned me,

Shiny and red and capable, into something

Faded black and grey and

     Tainted.

It's not that I'm too full to do anything.

It's that I'm too empty to feel

     Anything.