"Tabitha" by Meghan Malachi

I’m on the floor again, and that isn’t a metaphor for rock bottom. My new therapist asked me how I did it. How I managed to keep myself safe all these years. For the first time in over a decade, I was honest: I don’t remember. The meds are working, too, I think. Though after they unfurl my patterns, my dreams of precision, all the rot turns to tremors in my hands. It feels like the world ended when we were fourteen, and after years of dodging the undead on bare feet, I finally found my way to cold water and clean shoes. So after the session, I went out and bought stamps. I was thinking of the last time you and I shared a meal. How we cried in the rollercoaster line at Busch Gardens because we were hot and hungry and couldn’t fit ourselves to girlhood. How you said that Tampa will never be home because we wear fewer clothes here and our sweat smells different here. That night we tossed curse words across the dinner table and stuffed our mouths sour with lettuce. —By now you must know that I’ve broken my promise: I’m dealing with men so I don’t have to deal with myself. I’m thinking of one who lives on the west end of the city. He makes odd music, and I pretend that its subversion is what inspires me. He calls me the poet of silence and hair—you’ll be proud to know our love never reached flesh. Thank God it stopped at the bones. I hope you’ve kept your promise. And I hope your thyroid is better. Tabitha, if I could carry it all, I would. ————————————– Meghan Malachi called us from Chicago, IL. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems