every Thursday i go to couples therapy with my depression he whispers in my ear to stay in bed for another day, presses his palm to my chest. afraid I'm going to escape the covers. After i scrape myself out of the shower, i still smell like him. like midnight panic attacks, like first name basis with the CVS pharmacist, like "i'm not hungry, i already had a rice crispies treat today. our sessions with our therapist are 50 minutes we spend that time restating the same issues to her. We've been on again, off again since high school. this time its been a solid year, so that's gotta mean it's getting pretty serious. She asks about my appetite. No i haven't been eating, but he likes me skinny it makes it easier for him to be the big spoon its like i disappear like his body swallows mine. she asks if I've done anything with my friends lately... not in a while, we usually stay in my friends are the third wheel if we're out together. that's what happens when you've been with someone for so long. she asks if anything has changed since i started with Zoloft. he digs his nails into the chair, grits his teeth. she asks again He gets... jealous, but Zoloft treats me nice, takes me to breakfast in the mornings feeds me french toast He got mad though... something like cheating on him he threatened to take out the scissors so i threatened to see Zoloft even more all of them all at once. i almost... did. She asks if that was the night my friend took me to the healthcare center. yeah... but it was just that one time, and the nurse said "no visitors" took Zoloft away from me so we got to spend some quality time as a couple again. our therapist thinks we're only together because my father called my mother a who*e or because i still sometimes wish i were straight or because I've never had a "serious love life." she doesn't understand that this is the most serious relationship I've ever had She says "time's up, come back next week" he mutters "fine" under my breath slams the door on our way out. our therapist says "there has been improvements over the past few weeks." that he and i will probably always be together, but i'll start to be more independent soon lately I've been thinking more about that. Mornings when i wake up hungry my body remembers how to leave the mattress on its own feel his arms shrink from my waist for a while so i can finish a poem watch parks and rec make a sandwich, or the bed... without crawling back into it. even when he says that without him i would be an empty house scraped clean and creaking and caving in Sometimes i still think he's right. Last week i stepped onto the scale and i gained three pounds. it's only three pounds, but its all me. it's all... me.