Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

I can’t keep pretending like my life isn’t worth living. It hasn’t even fucking started yet.

I celebrate Jorie, who lives, suffers, sends me photographs of trees, tells me when she’s sad instead of assuming I do not need to know her weakness. I celebrate the ashes of her pain box, kept in a new box in her apartment, with the words on the outside: I answer that I cannot answer.

“No, James. You have to listen carefully—I want to know how it felt. Not why you felt it.”

“Are you sure that your real self is this anxiety-ridden, bursting, twisting, unhappy, buzzing, hate-filled, meandering, overtired sleepless boy?”

I say I’m not sure who I am.

“Then would drugs really make a difference? Would the drugs be any worse?”

“I don’t want to be artificial.”

“You want to be nonfunctional?”

“I would rather malfunction than sit and stare at a wall like an unplugged coffeepot.”

“Is this choice a result of anxiety and depression?”

MY CAST FINALLY COMES OFF

I feel terribly sad. Like I’m hopeless, even though I’ve got a professional here to help me

Dr. Dora asks me a few questions and I try to answer honestly, but there are things that I don’t want to say out loud. I don’t want to admit what I know about Jorie and her cutting. I don’t want to admit to interfering with Beth’s relationship because a) Dr. Dora will probably think I’m a bad person, and b) she’ll probably tell me that being in a relationship is a bad idea if I have mental health issues.

She’s going to judge my choices, so I have to be sure I tell her things that will make her think I’m worth helping. If I tell her things I’ve never admitted—like how I read The Story of O and a bunch of Anne Rice erotica at the county library and jerked off in the restroom—she’ll think I’m a pervert and will report me to my parents

Don’t we all.” The Brute sits down at the kitchen table with me. “Therapy isn’t what you need. You just need to organize yourself. Figure out what you want to do in the world. College and work.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“No, it really is. You’re just at that age where you think everything is so horrible and terrible.”

Dr. Bird—who doesn’t charge extra for late-night therapy—said I should simply ask my parents to let Jorie come back home.

I disagreed.

Dr. Bird said I might just be scared to bring up the situation.

I disagreed again, but we both knew she was right.