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Anything you could do to calm her down. Sidokus and crosswords. Bridge. Solitaire. Open a fashion mag and stare at the glossy pictures. You could go outdoors to try and walk her off. Look in the mirror and tell her she’s an underreaction. Lie to her! Run her into walls. Bruise her up in pole class. Brush her with the wire brush. Drink her down at the kava bar or ease her into an ice bath …. Or you could follow her train of thought and jump it, hauling through wastelands of drought and flood plains then up into the mountains,  joining the recluses faithfully embedded in cabins under volumes and pages of snow, subsidized by various renditions of self … take her by the hand and seat her ass in some new horizon church pew and drown her out with ministry. Wash her in algorithms and cyber monday shopping sprees. Call all your speed dials to help you talk her down, put on your beats and pound her with sound … lose her in the eyes of the starving dog. Sedate her with ice cream.

Anything you could do, really, to calm the painstaking truth. You became a severe and unmedicated form of inattention, battling her with anarchy … odds were high you would not make it home from the party. She countered all the ancient methods cached in your internal architecture; the blueprints from childhood, when you first encountered the vicissitudes of life … daydreaming … stealing half sticks of butter from the chopping block when your mom was so wrapped up in phone cord and gossip she was unable to give chase.

The night, dispirited, relinquished its hold to a cloud-brushed sun drop morning … exposing ashtrays full of ashes, bloated bodies strewn across the furniture. She found you there among them, knees pulled up, back against the wall, in conversation with the various renditions of self. Some casualty of culture wars. Head floating in a bubbly wake of oil, algae and champagne. You had lost your sugar coating and there was no way out. She lifted you up and embraced you. You pressed your fingerprints made of wiped mascara into her back. She produced a bill of rights and there was only one remaining, the rest had been scratched out or scribbled over and were beyond recognition. She read it to you in a loving tone of voice you could not have anticipated. You have the right to exist.

Dizzy and weak, you tried to stand but lost your legs. You began to rattle off non sequiturs. You got sick with her and threw up. You went cold and analytical as an obvious device to conceal your true feelings, which only betrayed your desperation. You were inadequate to the occasion. You began to falter and shake with a catharsis and cried out. You busted out of your spine and skidded across the floor.

She powdered you up and puffed your lungs. She gave you around the clock care, taught you how to speak and walk again. Kissed you on the forehead and wiped your face clean. You were nothing without her. She taught you grace and diplomacy and gratitude. Put you on a strict diet of oatmeal, right action and sincerity. She found that stubborn part of you that will never give up. That je ne sais quoi. That relentless, obsessive compulsion formed from thought-inspired feeling … conceived of contradictions. There there, now, open your eyes. I know you’ve been salted and canned and left for dead. I know you sold yourself out for the world. I see you. I know you’ve been a fool and gave away everything you were given to succeed … wandering the streets, aimless, wearing blankets and cardboard signs with scribbled prayers.

You went to the basin and splashed your face with water, and when you looked up you saw her. The painstaking truth. Heavy like all your swollen heartache. But you no longer had to fight her and you no longer had to shoulder her because she was in you. And you solemnly swore you would do what you could to champion her … I give you this world that discards us without a second thought. It isn’t pretty or painless and will never be what you wanted or hoped for. It’s the second draft when you’re gonna need fifty. Do not panic. Keep seeking. I am the curiosity of a kitten. Relentless. I am here in the stillness. The je ne sais quoi.