Whatever I Want

There once was a wall
Between me and you

Carefully constructed
Since birth

My mother built it.
​Her first gift to me

It was flimsy at first.
​Desperate. 
​seen but never touched,
​Lest it crumble into dust
​(More on that later)

Brick by brick the wall climbed upward
​Growing taller, stronger
​Soon it no longer stood, but loomed ​
Over me
​Like a wrathful god

By the time I could no longer see the top ​
I knew it had grown sentient ​
Because my mother’s gift spoke to her and her alone.
​The wall gaveth, the wall taketh away
​On her orders

The second gift my mother gave me
​Was her bad days.
​(I was not allowed to have my own.)

On Mother’s bad days,
​She would instruct the Wall to shower my ​
Broken body ​
With tangible gifts ​
For me to enjoy ​
Consolation prizes ​
For surviving in one piece

The wrathful god would pelt me with treasures ​
I never asked for:

Earrings and bracelets ​
Pencils and pens
​Baby dolls and sweets

They were meant to be her apology
​For breaking me
​On our bad days

Eventually I learned that bad days ​
Meant gifts ​
And good days ​
Meant peace ​
And quiet

But now my mother is dead.
​The wall is mine to command

​And with that, ​
It grew legs. It walked with me
​And allowed me to touch it
​And slowly I built it up ​
In her place

The wall sustained me
​Protected me ​
Just as it was created to do

All my life I never knew
​What it was protecting me from ​
Why it was made ​
But I know now

It’s you.
​The royal you, the we, the they and them
​When I am not enough,
​The wall is there ​
Pelting me with costumes ​
To look like anything ​
Anyone
​Anywhere

The right thing will make me
​More than enough ​
To protect myself ​
From what’s out there

Sometimes I hear their voices ​
Calling my name
​But I am not enough ​
So I stay silent ​
And wait for them to pass
​For my peace
​And quiet

One day I learned that the wall can die, 
​If I let it;
​With every gift the wall rains down ​
One more brick crumbles and falls away ​
And I cannot seem to build it
​Faster than it can fall

I must not beg ​I must not ask too much

But the wall is there to protect me ​
From the voices ​
And the bad days
​And homelessness ​
And criticism
​And abuse
​And you
​and them
​And pain

And pain
​And pain

Until I became pain,
​And the wall could not protect me
​From myself

Nothing it dropped on me could make me ​
Not me

So the wall built me a bower
​built me a haven
​Filled it with baubles
​Consolation prizes
​Just like mother always wanted for me

It took my dreams, twisted them into things
​To distract me from me

​I asked for hope and it gave me crystals
​I asked for art and it gave me pencils
​I asked for love and it gave me earrings
​I asked for a voice and it gave me a microphone

But it couldn’t make the wall seep into my body ​
And give me
me

It couldn’t make me less me
​Less anxious, less scared, less perfectionistic, less

alone

Table. Sweater. Printer. Pen. Desk. Book. Bowl. Sculpture. Apartment. Blanket. Headphones. Thing. Thing. Thing.

Nothing ​I could use.

I did not stop begging,
​Even when the wall crumbled down to my waist

I wanted safety, and it filled the home it built for me 
​with safe things

Still, I was not allowed to have bad days ​
(not in this economy)

And on my first bad day ​
When I asked for connection ​
The wall crumbled into dust

And here you are 
​on the other side ​
Patient and afraid

I want to ask you
​How long I was in there
​Talking to my castle full of objects ​
All alone
​How long you’ve been waiting,
​If there are more of you

But I am so cold ​
And my wall is not here to shield me ​
So instead - please, tell me:

​What do I do now?