A Friend

It is a good thing to enjoy one's own company.

Recently, I have found it difficult to do so;

I have found it is impossible

to want to be alone.

I am not a good friend to myself anymore.

Existing in my own company was once a blessing,

but now I find it more a curse.

Long car rides once meant that I could think,

that I could speak to myself

and voice my own thoughts aloud,

thoughts that I couldn't express with others around me.

I could imagine,

be creative,

spin tales of other worlds;

I could sing at the top of my lungs

without any fear of judgment

except, of course, my own;

I could explore,

drive down roads I had not ventured before,

make a turn that I had never made,

and end up farther from home than intended,

but not have a care.

At the end of the summer I went driving alone

and suddenly I was an outcast.

I deemed myself unwanted, shunned from society

never to return.

Sun and heat and blue skies meant nothing anymore,

and instead of adventuring, imagining, singing,

I found my frame wracked with sobs

as my mind raced

and I breathed so heavily and so quickly

that I couldn't think,

couldn't speak,

couldn't do anything but scream.

I would clutch the wheel in anguish,

sobbing without reason,

crying out on the side of the road,

sitting in my little car

and wishing I could disappear.

Driving wasn't the only thing I lost:

lying alone in the nighttime, I stared at the ceiling,

reaching, clutching desperately at sleep,

but unable to grasp it completely

and falling into fits of anxiousness

that kept me awake for hours;

writing lost its appeal, reading even more so

and I began to convince myself

that the world didn't need my voice,

didn't want it,

that I didn't deserve to share it;

being amongst other people eventually became a chore

as I was constantly lost in my thoughts,

constantly fretting

for no reason;

I lost my appetite,

ate almost nothing,

didn't care that my limbs weakened

and my stomach ached from pangs of hunger.

Now I wish to be a better friend,

a better ally to myself

in this war

against my own mind.

This is not a war in which I physically fight,

but a war in which I must resist;

a war in which the enemy

must be cured of its pain;

I must heal myself in order to be better,

and in order to be worthy

of the person who I wish to be,

the person that I know I can someday become.

I will be kinder to myself,

I will go gentler,

easier,

give myself strength

and help myself in my shortcomings;

I will trust myself

to know what is best,

and I will hold my own hand

through this healing process that I must endure;

I will befriend myself again

and learn to cherish myself

and my own company.