learning to breathe


they tell me the same things.

first it was the boy who never learnt to love
then it was my mother and third
was the look in my father's eyes when he realised
everything was wrong.

i know what it feels like to
wear the same clothes and forget the days of the week
dressed in my contorted rib and layers of fresh skin
where cigarette buds and pain once sought ground 
like friction.
i get uncomfortably warm
and sick in the gut
when i remember this
for i remember everything else,
like the seconds it took before his eyes went blank
and the hate from his words hit my skin,
the nights spent under my table with the lights turned off,
like the way everybody tried to remind me
i was not alone and eventually
it worked.

i will remember what day it is
and how long i have felt like
nothing, and i will remember my mask,
which i left on a pile of better-looking clothes
and light conversation.

i resent the smear of a smile that creeps up
when i digest the irony of them telling me 
she should get some help,
so ignorant to how i need it
just as much.

and i feel hate for them,
them who think they can understand what it is like 
to be broken.

i am transfixed by my own mood swings
and wonder what a constant emotion feels like
without the sudden urge to push inwards and
destruct from within.

they tell me the same things

first it was the boy who thought it was alright to hurt a girl
then it was my mother holding my head up
asking why i wanted to die
third was the look in my father's eyes
over my drained and wasted body

first it was the boy who continued to hurt the girl
who wanted to die
then it was my mother on the other side of the bedroom door
hiding knives from my view and screaming at a depression
she knew so well
third was my father giving me pills i never took
and pinning me down in a room as i screamed at his
yearn to understand my pain.

they tell me the same things
like they know better than
what it is like to piece your own pieces together.

first it is the boy who deserves hell,
then it is my mother wishing her years away,
the third is my father wishing me well.

the fourth came in good time,
searching for the love i was capable of giving. the fourth
shelters my pain from a world too big for me
and taught me my own strengths. the fourth is a boy who 
knew what it was like to be broken
and respected the importance to think
different as he told me the same things. 
the fourth is a boy who understands
the only way i can get through the hate and hurt
that aches inside me is to love. the fourth changes my mind
and wishes my depression away
in ways he is not used to
because he knows i do not deserve it.

i know what it feels like to watch disasters from afar
and up close,
i have done it for years, 
from the day i understood the pain in my mother's eyes
and the comfort in understanding something i will grow to inherit.

if i remember the motions through it all clearly,
i promise i will turn out alright.

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