Medicated

I am unraveling again.

Nightmares sweat through my skin.

Mornings arrive too early,

My jaw locked like a trap,

My breath held hostage in my chest.

Every sound is a threat.

Every silence is too loud.

My ears ring like alarms

No one else can hear,

Until pain spills into my stomach

And my body empties itself in protest.

Anger comes without permission.

Flashes without warning.

I become a storm in a room with no exit.

Medication taught me what quiet felt like.

Now without it,

I remember how much work it takes.

To stay human.

How much effort it takes,

Not to break everything I touch.

I sit in stillness

And feel like I'm running ten lives at once.

I feel useless in every role I wear.

Costumes slipping from a body

That no longer knows who it's for,

Most days I ask the same questions:

"Why am I still here?"

"Who is this pain serving?"

"What good is surviving,

If I only leave wreckage behind me?"

I want silence.

Not rest-erasure.

I want the tension to finally unclench,

My spine to stop bracing for impact.

My eyes to close without fear of waking back up inside this war.

There was a moment once

When is stopped fighting the noise.

When the whispers screamed

And I did not answer them.

No tears. No rage.

Just a dangerous calm.

And now I live between two hungers:

The pull to disappear 

And the bruised instinct to stay.

I am not brave,

I am not strong.

I am only tired of holding myself together,

With bleeding hands.

If healing means becoming the damage.

Then what am I really saving? 

Reviews

[keith]

i understand
after more than 50 years since i left the jungles
i still awaken with clenched fist

kudos for your bravery

[Serendipity Planet]

That was very powerful and honest

[Stephie.Santi]

Thank you, I really wanted this to be one you felt in your chest.