I think I’m getting worse at hiding this.
This is both good and terrible.
Mostly terrible.
Actually all terrible.
I’m angry at the person I am now
because I’m not the same
as the person I used to be.
I don’t know how to change.
I could pick myself back up
but I’m only one person
and I don’t know how.
How many layers of clothing does it take
to hide these scars?
I’m not just dealing with my feelings about it
I’m dealing with how I feel about those feelings
and how I feel about feeling that way about my feelings
Feelings on top of feelings on top of feelings
until everything’s lost all meaning.
How much time should it take to shake this?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Sit down and let me tell you
all the things that I am.
I guarantee my list will not
match up with any assumptions
you may have made in your head
and it will barely match up with
any list I could have made five years ago.
This is the new normal.
Take it and run with it because it’s all there is.
So what, we have to go to therapists now
just to have someone who will listen?
Just to have someone who understands
or at least listens for long enough to realise
there’s something there yearning
to be understood?
Someone to shine a light in the fog:
I’m starting to realise that’s all I’ve ever
really wanted from anyone.
My door has always been wide open,
now flung off the hinges as I sit
muttering to myself: “This is the new normal.”
I am still adamant that I’ve never cared
what anyone else thinks about me. I just care about
how I’m treated. That’s not the same thing.
I’ll be myself even if it kills me.
At the very least, I’ll try to understand me.
I have never been more honest in my poetry than I am these days, and I have never loved writing more.
There’s nothing wrong with the scars on our hands,
we’re all just trying to understand.
English Clouds
Trying not to think about it
is far too much like hard work.
Believe me, I have been trying
to kerb my thoughts, to retrain
myself, but I don’t have the
discipline, and it is exhausting.
It is very much like trying
to tell the English clouds
not to cry about it.
Five hours before dawn
we hunt for our clothes in the
dim blue light of phones
If physical pain were punctuation,
it would be a question mark
searching for reasons and explanations.
Or it would be an interrobang –
frenzied alarm and insinuations.
If doubt were punctuation,
it would be an ellipses.
There is more to follow
and it may not be what you expected.
If fear were punctuation,
it would be a comma –
a run-on sentence, trying to flee
from itself and the trauma.
If peace of mind were punctuation,
it would be an apostrophe –
only noticed when it is missing,
appreciated by someone like me.