cassiopeiae

“Is there something wrong?” He asked, observing the way she cradled her body in her shaking arms, her hollowed out blue eyes gazing off to somewhere distant, far away from here.

“No.” She answered through a clenched jaw.

“Then why do you look so upset?”

Why am I like this?

Why am I like this?

Why am I like this?

It is a mantra I repeat with tear-soaked eyelashes

And hyperventilated breaths that come out in heaves so hard that it leaves my rib cages rattling against themselves as if my bones are just as brittle as my trembling hands

My body crumbles into itself like a collapsed building

My knees pressed so tightly against my sternum that it threatens to give way

Tucking my arms around them to pull them closer until I can feel the pressure in my chest

As if it will pull all of my broken pieces back together again

As if it will make me whole again

As if will stop my racing thoughts that whisper my worst fears

As if it will mold me into something that I am not

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

Staring up at the popcorn ceiling and counting the dots across it as if they are the stars

Longing to be somewhere far away from here

But I’m still not quite sure how far I must travel to escape my own mind

To escape this battle that is raging inside my skull

I am stacked against a dishonorable enemy

One that fights with malice and fingernails that claw at the strings that hold me together

Tearing until there is nothing left but a tangled heap on a cold tile floor

Creeping up behind my back when I am not looking

When I think I am safe

When I think I am well

I am not in control

I am not in control

I feel the anger bubble up inside me and flood my throat like a war cry from within

I feel my heart begin to pound like a battle drum, as if it longs to push this fear and this dread far away from me

It beats and it says, “You have lost this battle, but you have not yet lost the war.”

Anxiety is replaced by white-hot fury that snarls with barred, sharp teeth

You will not take this from me

You will not take this from me

So, I stow away my happiness behind doors that it cannot reach

The treasure I’d spent years chasing after

And I bow up my chest and lift my head as if to receive a crown

I raise my eyes up and look my enemy in the eyes

Because I have fought this war for many years

And I will fight this war for many more years

And I will keep fighting

Because you have taught me how

How to be ruthless, how to be unrelenting

I will claw at my racing thoughts until they are ripped from my brain the way that they have ripped my peace from me

I will suffocate out my fears the same way they have suffocated me

I will shake my anxiety to its very core until it is trembling in that way that it has made me tremble

This is why I am like this

This is why I am like this

he is a silent lover

others may not see the way that he shows his affections towards her

but she could see it

in the way that he would notice her nearly sunburnt skin and began to apply sun screen to the area

in the way that he tried to help her in the kitchen even though he had no idea what he was doing

in the way that he would look at her longingly from across this room, his eyes peering into all the secret parts of her

in the way he whispered “I love you” as a reminder, not a question

in the way that he pointed to the stars distractedly as he peered down at her, as if to say “the stars don’t shine anything like you, my dear”

in the way that he placed his hand on her cheek so delicately

as if she was water and he feared she might turn to ripples beneath his fingertips

he was gentle so to leave her as she was

and to enjoy her the very way that she’d been made

and though he is a silent lover