Not Cured

I wrote a letter in Grade 9, I asked if I was happy

When I read it after high school graduation

I brimmed with hope of the post-secondary expectation

Travel with all my high school friends to a graduation trip

Work maybe 2-3 jobs before university starts

Then zoom past all the lectures, classes, till convocation began

But that’s not what happened

I was abandoned

When it suddenly settled into the public zeitgeist that it was a pandemic

I was already sick

Burnt out from all the exchanges of

“How are you? What’s new with you? When are we hanging out?”

To responses of Static

I was already sick

Contracted a stomach bug, potentially

I had travelled and worked so much to escape the truth

I was sick

Even before the lockdowns began, I was already bedridden

Confined to a reaction of my body

Feeling puffed up, oozing, bleeding, sore

Stupidly, foolishly, and naively, I thought love was the remedy

Thought if I leaned into family and perhaps a lover or two

I’d feel better, I’d feel cured.

But relationships aren’t enough

I had made a labyrinth of relationships that was of my undoing

Because I needed to accept another truth

I was abused

Then all I knew was like I had known before, from early depression, compression, and suicidal tendencies

I was sick, abused, and abandoned.

That was me in 2020. So, I drew a portrait. It was the only way to capture at the time the weight of only ever seeing yourself as ill, and no other image was permissible to equate. That you. Just you. You weren’t anything more than sick.

I didn’t write a letter in year 1 of university. There was no way to

There would’ve never been any words

But a simple question: Are you happy?

I would’ve read it after convocation

I wouldn’t have had so high expectations

Not because they were lowered

But because I had found peace

I spent five years looking for a cure

It was a cure for something incurable

There is no cure

I am better,

No longer bedridden

No longer abandoned

I rebuild my community

I found my people

I found love, but it wasn’t meant to be with lovers

Found love in God and consequently peace as well

Found a cure for something incurable with Him

Found safety and a realization

Being sick wasn’t the problem; believing I’d find a cure was

I don’t need to be cured, and perhaps it is the joy of knowing this journey

This journey of healing

Is far better

I am happy.

I don’t need any more letters to ask me about that.