WITHOUT A COAT

Years ago I stepped outside into the cold without a coat
Because I wanted to feel something,
I wanted some hardship, when everything felt painfully, agonizingly easy, and I didn’t know if I fit
in this cosmos

Listening to “written in the stars” from Aida the broadway musical
On the bus, on the way back from community college
Where I was an alien creature
As I thought about what would happen if I stepped into the train track, and shivered,

“is it written in the stars,
are we paying for some crime,
is this all that we are good for,
just a stretch of mortal time,
or some god’s experiment,
in which we have no say,
in which we’re given paradise,
but only for a day….”

Yea. That was my jam.
Wondering if my life was a cruel experiment.
Oh how cliché
Hah!
But that's where I went

Called my mom one day and said it, “maybe I just don’t belong in this world, maybe I’m just from a different dimension and this existence isn't gonna work out”
“don’t be ridiculous, of course you belong in this world, we’ll figure this out honey, don’t worry, we’ll figure this out, we’ve got you covered”

I don’t know if she hid a crack in her voice or if she really wasn’t worried

One day she was taking my sister to school and she came back,
and I saw her pull up in front of the house and run inside to find me
Panic had stricken her as she drove
She clung to my side
“I’ll go to the park with you while you go running”
I had never felt so loved in all my days of being an alien creature

You see I  thought I was dead.
I mean I knew I was eating and breathing but that was just a formality.
I was past the point of no return,

Went outside without a coat just to put myself through something
To prove I had nerve endings
To prove I was alive