Here's My Therapy Graduation Certificate

I’ve stopped clenching my jaw, but I’m hyperaware of the sharpness of my teeth.

I’ve learned yoga breathing

But I feel silly doing it.

I’ve learned how to fall asleep in a spiral of torment -

How to sit with that hopeless pattering of blood,

That leaves me so cold.

(Anxiety is a sort of fever).

My heartbeat awakens me by rocking my head

Ever so slightly, almost benignly

(Lean into it).

Morning finally comes.

(Proof of progress)

I prod a sore spot on my hip

As the tea water boils.

My mouth is sour,

So breakfast tastes bad.

Between bites, I consider

That all of our human trouble

Is stored between cause and effect

In trying to trace back to beginnings

(anxiety is an afterimage).

That’s why the present always feels like this...

This big squeeze.

I’ve learned how to root down deep in the interim

How to love this constriction

The sheer weight of any given moment.

I’ve learned (and relearned) the ups and downs

light and darkness -

Leaning into the latter.

I’ve become an automaton worthy of the word ‘stable’

A remote term,

A passing existence.

(Epiphany comes when you stop striving).

It’s my first week

let loose from therapy,

And my muted sense of assurance feels so adverse

because she left me with the prognosis

that emptiness was enough.