My brother suffers from anxiety. My sister from pride. My father is a coward, my mother subject to her vices. My best friend is crazy, the other is too stupid for her boldness.

Our demons are a commonality. We all suffer.

It feels like whatever pain my forefathers bore from labor for someone else was dumped onto me at a young age. I have always felt the weight of a thousand shackles upon me. I do not know if this is what made me sensitive to the pain in others. As I turn to fight that coming seething tide, I can feel the weight of heavy chains, cold in their bite, dig into my arms, my shoulders. My shins are burned from pulling against and my thighs always straining to push away. Always, the draw back into the dust, into the absolute quiet.

I used to have ambitions. I used to be excited about something other than bed. I used to have twinkle in my eye. I used to be patient. I was at one point the nice person in the room. Now I have a singular hope. For liberty.

One day I will wake, have the freedom to lift only my own from my bed. To put on a shaggy gray sweater smelling of attic. To lift the coffee cup to my mouth and not see in my body the delay in the command from my brain to my wrist. To sit outside in the cold autumn air watching the rush hour traffic. To be with that friend as lost as I and as powerless as I, and to be at peace that we stare death in the face as it looms over the horizon towards. To not give a rat's ass as we zoom through the suburbs under clear blue skies, sewing happy chaos for folks who deserve the laugh. To return to my normality, and not feel like I was another person back there, sipping beer and pulling from the cig. Was that actually me?

I do not remember.

Memory was never a boon unto myself.