so throw those curtains wide—one day like this a year will see me right!

[erika]

I can't tell you. I won't own it, won't admit to it, won't believe in it, because if I believe, it can be taken away. The sunken feeling will come back again, I won't get out of bed, I will cry over any tiny thing, all the old feelings back again.

Right now, how I feel, it'll be taken away, disseminated to my psychiatrist, my therapist, my social worker, sparkles of what once was turned into glittery foil and losing their illumination with every breath. Why aren't you that way now? They will ask, and I will say,

I knew it, I knew it all along. I knew that if I let the words slip from my lips, my ship would be sunk.

---

But . . . in my head thoughts, in my heart beats, in my deepest, frailest, barely-clinging-to-life gut reactions, I feel as though I could:

• Be a rebel—refuse to submit.


• Be an iconoclast—break all the rules.


• Be a dangerous vigilante—own your own emotions.

So I will tell you. Come close, & closer, so I can whisper it in your ear.

I am, maybe, just the tiniest bit, a little, just thismuch——

happy.

But don't tell.
I won't tempt it too much.