Poetry

I cannot bear to look you in the eye. I cannot let myself see and be seen. I’m a construction of a person on top of a constructed person. I don’t know what’s underneath it all. It could be empty or rotting or maybe just a child, innocently waiting to be seen. But to let someone peel it all away is an unbearable thing. I’m sorry I won’t let myself be known. It hurts me too, when I turn away. I feel my heart get crushed by my fear. Oh to let you hold me as I sleep; to be held, and to be safe and warm and loved. I know I will never let myself feel it; that will be my undoing. 

I collapse; again and again. I attempt to crawl back to survival. My heart getting compressed into an unrecognisable shape as I try to live. An avalanche of hurt and fear crushing whoever I was supposed to be. I want to tear my heart out of my chest to check for dents. Show it to someone. Say: ‘see look how it is misshapen, how it is crushed beyond repair’. I cannot keep it all inside. I cannot hold on. Take it away. Oh I would beg if I were able. Take it away and get me a new one. Made out of something resilient. A heart that is capable of love and kindness. That can hope without crumbling.

My body is enveloped in panic as the day unfolds. All the hope of it crushed beneath my rib cage. My lungs straining to contain everything I am incapable of saying aloud. Why does it never restart? Each day a continuation of the one before it. They never let me stop. They never give me the time I need to learn how to breathe. 

I hold the world in my hands. All the precious horror of it cradled on the nest of my fingers. When I breathe I create fog. I watch shadows flicker through the mist. Flashlights revealing the grey of pavement, the green of grass, the red sole of a shoe peeling off of the ground. I’d cry for rain if I could see the sky. The endless blue of it stretching beyond sight. The clouds would ride the winds over oceans and rivers and lakes. With a bellow they would fall to the ground in heavy droplets.

The world is in a mirror. Glass rippling with potential. The searching an excuse to stare. The reality a horrible lie. Each day a shifting of the landscape; waterfalls and landslides and the chasms between mountains. See the sun on the surface of an ocean and be blinded by the glare. The sun never learned how to dim. One day we will wake up to shards. Pick up the pieces and slice up our palms. I don’t think the sun bleeds red. But sometimes the sky turns crimson at its leaving. I wonder if the earth feels every change on its skin. If each mountain rises like jagged glass, glittering for a sunset.

Yes I am here. My shaky feet scuttle across the pavement. I’ll wait for hours. I think. I’ll wait for days. This day is made for memories. I can see myself looking back. Critiquing. Questioning. But my bags are heavy. I’ll wait here. Twitching offbeat. The pavement makes me look down. How unfair to make it so dull. My feet bounce. I will call this being. My hands grow paler in the winter. Spiderweb cracks of cold breaking through my skin. I will wait for a spring that knows how to be warm. Then my skin will tint brown and I will pretend I do not burn. The sun gets hot with sun cream and aloe Vera gel. Yes I’m waiting. And remembering. Caught in this tension.

I could write shitty poetry about you for the rest of my life. Always skirting around the words I want to mean. Just like our conversations face to face; I hide from everything. You’d look at the world as though it was something to fight. As if you could let passion live to become a flame. I’ve always cared more about the rhythm of my lungs than I did about the fit of my skin. I morphed into something forgettable for you. I’m sorry for making us so small. Both of us cramped inside my skull. I’m sorry for not being glad that you carved your way out. Found somewhere where you could learn how to live. I know you are better off now. But I’m not. And I think I’ll always hate you for that. Don’t worry, I’ll hate myself too.