The Common Cold

I lay in bed, thinking of death.
I lived alone in a crazy idea that I had come with death.
I wasn't disturbed.
It wouldn't be the worst thing to happen.
People think dying is the worst thing
But they don't know a thing about living;
I thought about dying.
I was always having to choose between
The misery of living and getting worse.
I sat in perfect stillness;
My lungs had suddenly clenched.
This is the last thing I remember; 
Collapsing without a trace among the pile of shoes
I don't remember what they said,
Just the fury of their words,
How the air turned raw.
I inched deeper into the feeling of breathing.
I cried.
He shouted and shoved me
I landed against the wall
Then I fell forward onto my hands and knees.
I huddled on the floor beside the door
And watched
and then, though everything started to blur in my mind
I saw the gun. I ran.
Time folded in on itself then.
I started to say nothing.
I think now it was sorrow;
The way I was not even in the room
I wanted to cease all together.
I wanted nothing more than to sprout wings and fly away.
I had been tortured like this enough times.
It was just something to put up with,
Like the common cold,
And that's what I was doing.
I acted as if I was the only one who could feel
The way I felt.
I said I didn't remember but I knew,
I didn't speak another word.
But I held on like it was the steering wheel to life .
I imagined a place where I would go from nothing to anything.
Every cell in my body had a little flame inside it,
Burning so brightly it hurt,
I was crying.
I sprawled through the darkness;
I was dying
And that was the way of things.
I couldn't bring myself to admit to her
That I cared.
What was wrong with me?
I was exhausted.
"No," I breathed, "No, I will not think about this.
I will not feel this.
I will not let this ruin the way things are
No."
I gave up.