Andrea Gibson - The Nutritionist lyrics

The nutritionist said I should
Eat root vegetables
Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted
Said my head would not keep flying
Away to where the darkness is

The psychic told me my heart
Carries too much weight
Said for 20 dollars she’d tell me what to do
I handed her the twenty
She said "stop worrying darling
You will find a good man soon"

The first psychotherapist said I should
Spend 3 hours a day
Sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed
With my ears plugged
I tried once but couldn’t stop
Thinking about how gay
It was to be sitting in the closet



The yogi told me to
Stretch everything but truth
Said focus on the outbreaths
Everyone finds happiness when they
Can care more about
What they can give than what they get

The pharmacist said klonopin
Lamictil, lithium, xanax
The doctor said an antipsychotic might help
Me forget what the trauma said
The trauma said don’t write this poem
Nobody wants to hear you cry about
The grief inside your bones

My bones said "Tyler Clementi dove into the
Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone"
My bones said "write the poem"

The lamplight considering the river bed
To the chandelier of your fate
Hanging by a thread
To everyday you could not get out of bed
To the bulls eye on your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die
I have been told, sometimes
The most healing thing to do-
Is remind ourselves over and over and over
Other people feel this too

The tomorrow that has come and gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing
That letter to your
Mother that says "I swear to God I tried"
But when I thought I hit bottom
It started hitting back
There is no bruise like the bruise
Of loneliness kicks into your spine

So let me tell you I know there are
Days it looks like the whole world is
Dancing in the streets when you break down
Like the doors of the looted buildings
You are not alone and wondering who will
Be convicted of the crime of
Insisting you keep loading your grief into
The chamber of your shame
You are not weak just because
Your heart feels so heavy

I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t
A phone booth with a red cape inside
Some people will never understand the
Kind of superpower it
Takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like
The gutter of a falling house
But my hands are always holding tight
To the ripchord of believing
A life can be rich like the soil
Can make food of decay
Can turn wound into highway
Pick me up in a truck with
That bumper sticker that says
"it is no measure of good health to
Be well adjusted to a sick society"

I have never trusted anyone with the
Pulled back bow of my spine
The way I trusted ones who
Come undone at the throat
Screaming for their pulses to find
The fight to pound
Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from
The George Washington bridge I
Was sitting in a hotel room in my own town
Calculating exactly what I had to swallow to
Keep a bottle of sleeping pills down

What I know about living is the
Pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the
Moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before
Through the glass of my most battered dream
I watched a dandelion lose it's
Mind in the wind and when it did
It scattered a thousand seeds

So the next time I tell you how
Easily I come out of my skin
Don’t try to put me back in
Just say here we are together at the window
Aching for it to all get better
But knowing as bad as it hurts our
Hearts may have only just skinned their
Knees knowing there is a chance the
Worst day might still be coming
Let me say right now for the record
I’m still gonna be here
Asking this world to dance
Even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet

You- you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me
Raising your bite against the bitter dark
Your bright longing
Your brilliant fists of loss friend

If the only thing we have to
Gain in staying is each other

My god that’s plenty

My god that’s enough
My god that is so so much
For the light to give
Each of us at each other’s backs
Whispering over and over and over "Live"
"Live" "Live"