I am

I am a legend - a legend that is meant to stand the test of time. I will not crumple. I will not fall. I will fight to take up space.

I wonder what would happen if I disappeared - if I started taking up less space than my scarves do. I know that as my body wanes, the piles of crocheted scarves waxes. Sometimes the rhythmic ebb and flow of my crochet hook is the only beat my heart has to sustain itself. Fortunately, that's all it takes.

I hear people tell me they love me. Most of the time it feels good. Some of the time it feels strange. If I make that kind of impact on other people, that means I exist. I exist to them. And I can't just simply not exist. It feels suffocating when I view it that way. What if one day I just wanted to disappear? I couldn't just fade away and vanish without a trace or a trail.

I see myself in the mirror and don't know what to think. My body is something I don't recognize - so small, compact and finite. I like it but I don't like the sunken spaces under my eyes or the sallow way my skin looks without makeup.

I want to be free if it would let me. Well - if it would let me under my conditions. I could be free if I could be free and weightless. But unfortunately, being free for me would only mean more weight. I starve to fit, because one day I started believing that fitting was my freedom.

~~~~~

I am a legend - a legend that is breaking under the weight of being weightless. Does that even make sense? Sometimes I can't think too clearly. I start to levitate when really, I couldn't be farther from the sky. I'm stuck here. Down here.

I pretend to feel strong and significant. Some days I do, but I always find a way to talk myself out of it. So many accomplishments floating around me - things I did or have yet to do. Why can't I claim any of them as my own? Because I'm just bobbing through, unaware.

I feel invisible, even though I'm not. People see me and I see them. I want to help and relieve their fears but it's my fears that are keeping me in a endless cycle of disappointing them.

I touch the patterns on my crocheted creations and they remind me that I'm here.

I worry about you and if my solitude or anger will scare you away.

I cry when I feel I've let you down because I know I'll let it happen again. I cry when I have words to say to you but they won't come out. I cry because I want to hide but I'm too afraid that if I ever emerge, you won't be there.

I understand if you can't forgive me because I am in a perpetual state of blaming myself for a crime I can't identify.

I say I'm going to be happy and some days I believe it more than others.

I dream about the day when anxiety won't be in my life anymore. Now it cuts me loose for pockets of a day and returns at the worst possible moment.

I try to imagine a life where I won't be trapped in this cycle of disappearing. Right now, I try to disappear.

I hope you heard me and that you'll agree.

I am a legend.