Denial?

You would call it denial: the way my wallet opens for this and that unnecessary trifle and frill; the way I walk into the classroom with quiet confidence and burst, sometimes, into exuberance; the way I ran today.

But it is not denial. I have no money, and I know it. I am a sack of aging skin wrapped around bones that can barely seem to hold themselves together, nerves twanging and exposed, and I know it. I am painfully aware of my back and my leg each morning and night.

This is rebellion: spending money that isn’t mine, holding my life together with a staple, pounding my pain into the ground.

Yesterday, for the third time in nine weeks, I ran. I finished a whole mile and walked slowly back. Last night, I ached and moaned, but I played the stoic, opting out of ibuprofen. This morning, I pushed it to one and a half miles, wrote a poem about a snake.

If I let myself, I could be back.