P.49 / 1896

“One day she remembered that it wasn’t her job to make everyone happy.”

— Robin Lee

Tightrope Walker

I’m struggling,

Stumbling like a failing tightrope walker

I turn and want to blame someone

For sabotaging the rope,

For distracting me

But there’s no one but me

I abandoned safety net and balancing pole

Instead there’s darkness waiting should I fall

There’s no way of knowing what’s down there

Should I tumble, would I crack?

Should I fall, would I break?

Should I jump, would I

Die

Wastefulness

I don’t

know

I don’t know

how to stop

Stop the tears from falling

Stop the fears from showing

Stop a life from being wasted

Please stop me

Stop me from wasting my life

Stop wasting a life on me

Transept of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire by Joseph Mallord William Turner

I sit here and put words on a paper that I otherwise do not dare to say. I don’t know who to talk to. When I mention what I think about I get told that it’s only because things are just not going my way right now. Funny. I suppose things haven’t been going my way last year either. Or the year before that. Or the year before. I don’t remember not feeling like this. These words, there the same. For years now. I’m writing them down because I’m unable to say them to anyone.

I’ve reached out for help before. Got weird looks from people when I told them that I need to talk to someone. Got told that they wouldn’t be able to help me because I just needed to get over this. Everyone feels like this once in a while.

I went there once. Got told I felt like this because I’m not taking control over my life. The situation was uncomfortable. I didn’t go a second time. They asked for feedback afterwards. What was I supposed to say? Thanks for not listening, I still don’t know how to not hate myself. How to not cry. How to make my chest stop hurting. How to stop feeling like I’m drowning.

Now the thought of talking to someone is even scarier. I don’t like to talk to people anyway. What if I take all my courage and ask for help again, only to be told it’s my own fault? I know it’s my fault. I tell myself that every day. I don’t need another person telling me the same.

My knees buckle,

My mind, it bends

My mouth stumbles

Over the words it borrows

From others with less sorrows

Bianca Stone, from What Is Otherwise Infinite: Poems; “God Searches for God”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Gentle Spirit

-Zoë Lianne