They say it to me
Trying to help
Trying to be kind
Trying to instill hope.
But it does the opposite
Suctioning hope like a vacuum,
I’m left with nothing but an indictment
An indictment when it turns out I can’t.
“You can do it.”
The four words act like a hydraulic press
Crushing my spirit
Crushing my hope
Crushing my soul
Because sometimes
Most times, really,
I can’t.
“Stand up and sit down as many times as you can in 30 seconds.”
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
And times up.
Heart beat racing,
agony in my legs.
I did it.
But the consequences of doing it:
Sleeping for 58 hours of the next 72 hours
A Straight 18 hours after doing those 8 chair squats.
“You can do it.”
It bashes the remaining hope I have
I’m not sleeping anymore,
I’m “recovered.”
It feels like my shoulders are being ripped out of their sockets
The weight,
The weight of a 500 pound suit of armor
The literal heaviness my body feels from nothing but gravity
It’s like I’m on a planet with 50 times more gravity than Earths.
That feels less crushing than those 4 words.
We would never say, “you can do it”
To a person with AIDS referring to curing it themselves
To a person with cancer to just exercise the cancer away
To a person with muscular dystrophy who can’t walk to walk.
Yet we say it all the time.
It’s “you can do it.”
Our society’s mantra that crushes the spirits of those of us who can’t.
Because here’s the thing
If they decide “you can do it,”
But you can’t “do it,”
Then it is your fault that you “couldn’t do it.”
It’s a personal indictment
a personal failure,
you fail.
The phrase is not meant to be that
But that is what it is all the same.
Because I might be able to right now
But pacing is a thing that has to be done.
I can do it now,
But what are the consequences for later?
“You can do it.”
That phrase should be relegated and quarantined like the n-word and the r-word.
It is an agony to me
Because before I got sick,
I could do it.
But I can’t.
And even when I can,
I shouldn’t
The consequences are severe.
But they say it all the same,
“You can do it.”
No.
That is my answer.
No.