The Nutritionist
by Andrea Gibson
The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away
to where the darkness lives.
The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.
Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling.
You will find a good man soon.”
The first psycho therapist told me to spend
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet
with my eyes closed and ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.
The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness
when they care more about what they give than what they get.
The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.”
The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me forget what the trauma said.
The trauma said, “Don’t write this poem. Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones.”
But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.”
My bones said, “Write the poem.”
The lamplight. Considering the river bed.
To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread.
To everyday you could not get out of bed.
To the bulls eye of your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die.
I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do
Is remind ourselves over and over and over: “Other people feel this too.”
The tomorrow that is coming, gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing that letter to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back”
There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into the spine
So let me tell you I know there are days
it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets
when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings
You are not alone
and wondering who will be convicted of the crime
of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame
You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy
I have never met a heavy heart
that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside