Each morning,
it takes me ten minutes to realize that I’m awake,
that the monsters my psyche conjured cannot harm me any longer,

I take a deep breath,
and inhale a loneliness that settles in the deep pits of my lungs, 
I exhale, 

But the feeling clings to the home it has spent years renovating, 
It has made me forget that this body belongs to me. 

I get out of bed.
I take my first steps.
These hands hang at my sides,
as I try my best to recollect the mantras my therapist hammered out with me, 
The ones she hammers out of me,

I brush my teeth. 

It’s a new day.
I haven’t seen this one yet. 

I will find a way to love, 
to fill my lungs with oxygen,
a forced gentrification,

I will find a way to survive,
to thrive, 
I close my eyes. 

My heart beats softly in my chest,
I count to twenty,
I am ready.