Inside My Bag...

Inside my bag...

It’s very, very dark in there. Bring a match or a flashlight if you want to see inside. It’s not ALWAYS dark, but mostly, anymore.

Everyday I reach down deep, deep inside my bag and hope I’ll be able to see inside. It used to get all white and glaring and reflective! I could dance all night and the next and the next...but now it’s really, really dark in there. You have to be careful, never know what could reach out and bite.

It’s a scary thing, all that darkness. My bag scares me. I could list all the things inside my bag if only I could SEE it! But I’ll try: makeup for cover, of course; pens and pencils with which to write; wishes written in erasable pencils so they’re easy to make disappear if anyone tries to look at them; books I read and want to write. Oh yeah, and a big, ticking clock that keeps running faster and faster and faster.

No one knows how dark the darkness gets, or how I have to root around to find what I really need. “What do you do for yourself?” My therapist asks that every time I go. “Um,” I say. “I buy flashlights.”