Leftover Curry

Everyone says
Go home and you'll feel better. (I promise!)
Those first two words break my heart.
The best and worst part about being
A Gitana
is the same thing.

Leftover curry grows spicier.
Leftover feelings, memories, patterns
only grow in size and weight.
No suitcase is big enough to carry all of this.
Nor should I have to carry it alone.
(Should is a modal verb which ought to be removed from language.)

I am very good at walking sideways (like a crab).
You all fear I cannot walk forward; I'm sure doubting I can at all.
And You most of all, cannot promise to
help, sympathize, simply watch.
There is toxicity yes, I know (I'm scared too!) but also
simple truths and simpler smiles.

Probably one day, we'll all understand everything
because age and time like to play drinking games
and turn us into fools.
But for now, we laugh and sigh and love
painfully, as if they were the most amazing, original feelings.
They aren't.

You insist (vehemently) that you have faith in me.
I believe you think you do.
But do you, truly? If you had faith in all of me,
you'd know I'm not uncertain about this.
About everything else, but not This.
And I have the energy and power and imagination to see it through.

Three more days to rest and ache,
to cry and to smile and battle through.
The suitcases we are given to use are stronger
than we think, and bigger than we know.