We move from morning to evening with ease, the sorrows surrounding us slip away. We dine on white walls, fresh wood floors, and the smell of a bustling street. It is springtime, and we are in love again.

I’m doing my best to be healthy, and you’re doing your best to take care of me. It’s only a matter of time before I slip from my immediate surroundings into a sing-song world in my head.

But my love for you, these past four years, has always pulled me out of there. I’ve lost the identity of “psychiatric patient” and I get to be normal with you. I get to have a home, nice things and food to eat. My belly is always full with wine, affection, affluence.

Inside, I am cold. The kind of cold that develops after the world has forced you to be strong. I am hard in all the places I was once broken, this also makes me hard to love. I miss the ease of mental-illness, the way it took up all my time.

Now, I have to enjoy the sunshine, the world- the people in it. I have to be kind where I once would hide, show my face even on the bad days.

I don’t wear makeup the way I used to, my brows are thick, and my body is strong. I can do a push up. My arms can lift, and my legs can carry me.

Someday when I slide the rest of my fragility off, I will be dangerous. Very dangerous. A force to be reckoned with, an incredible artist with a room of her own and a strong love at her side.