I Walk Around in Circles

I walk around in circles all day long, all day long, all day long.
I walk to the kitchen, eat too much sugar, but even when I’m eating, I still move around the room, picking up cups, filling a bottle of water, pacing around, never stopping.
Then I walk to the living room, sit down on the couch next to my father, it’s late and he’s in his PJ’s. I put my arms around him and squeeze him close. Because every now and then I need to hold onto a human for rescue, for a lifeline, because it's so easy to let go.

I am very aware that it's very easy to just let go, to stop where I am and give in to this incontrollable rage, this numbness, to stop being good and wishing everyone well and telling you I’m fine and thinking of all the good things I can do to keep her name alive.

And then I think of her name and that's when I stop moving and I realize I need to keep walking in circles again.

I let go of my father and walk to the bathroom, I don't even need to pee; but there's something about sitting in the quiet, white room, staring at the locked door, aware of all the pills on the rack behind me.

That’s another thing that worries me. I keep asking my friends about pills, daydreaming about Xanax, considering that strip of tranquilizers they gave my husband the day he broke the news to me, which he naively left on the table.

Every now and then, when it gets too hard to be around people who smile, when it feels like something inside of me is going to pull me down, I think of those tiny white pills and wish they could give me the clarity and the peace that I no longer know.

It's all in the stomach, this rage that I carry as I walk from room to room, stopping to stroke the cat, then back to the kitchen where I stuff my face with more sugar and remind myself that I want to lose weight again and I really should start dieting, but still I’m walking.

And my mother says I have ADD, it's one of the symptoms of depression and I can't listen to her. Whenever she talks, I get a sudden compelling urge to get up and walk away and just keep walking and that's how I deal with it, that's how I’m coping, by not sleeping at all, by wearing myself out with walking around this empty house till six in the morning, when the morning prayers have already been called and the cats are up and squeaking for food, and I’m exhausted by all the websites I keep reading over and over again, and the dresses I keep almost ordering just to keep my mind somewhere else, and even when I fall into bed, thinking it couldn’t get any harder

I stare at the ceiling
and there's this ringing noise in my head, my breathing is too loud, and it's too quiet, quiet enough for this memory of her and our feet digging into the sand, as the waves roll onto our toes and her hair is red, and that's when I have to get myself out of bed and put on my slippers and I start walking in circles again.