It is not always sunshine and blue skies.
Not only is healing not linear-
But it is lonely.
Sometimes I stare at my phone for so long I forget that I’m a person.
I want so badly to reach out to someone,
but what are you supposed to say-
“Hello! I’m not doing well. Please help me?”
There are always follow up questions, like
“What’s wrong?”
Then I always say I’m tired,
because it’s true.
But I’m the kind of tired that sleep doesn’t heal.
I’m the kind of tired that cries in the shower. And in the car.
And in strangers bathrooms at work.
I’m the kind of tired that holds its breath and slowly releases through the lips so it doesn’t hyperventilate at a stop sign.
I’m the kind of tired that makes all of my friends laugh, all the time, no matter what.
The kind of tired that smiles really big.
And anyway,
my sad looks too much like mad,
so I try to make it all look like happy instead.
It’s one big hoax,
But the truth is,
I’m rotting-
Under my sheets that need to be washed,
And my blinds pulled shut,
And my four white walls that keep getting smaller and smaller around me.
I stare at my bible and I want to read it,
But I’m too afraid of every single page-
And I don’t know how to explain that in any other way.
So I continue to pray,
“God, I need you to hear my heart.”
Sometimes I think he does-
When I see three pigeons in one day,
Or a dime on the street,
Or the off chance that someone hugs me.
Other times I just think I’m crazy-
That all these signs are just our minds way of protecting us from the confusion of it all.
I wonder if behind the faces of my friends,
Hides a maze as complex as the one I’m masking, myself.
If we’re all just dressing up these bodies,
spraying them with perfume,
And zipping up the hundreds of butterflies inside our tummies, every morning-
All the same way,
But nobody says a thing.
I long to take my skin off, like a winter coat,
In front of someone who understands.
Show them my bones,
and my blood,
and all this fear taking up space inside of me.
But I do not want to scare away everyone that I love.
I know that I’m capable of seeing every kind of “too much” that my loved ones carry atop their shoulders-
And when they present it to me on a cracking platter,
I will always hold my hands out to bear it.
But I’m afraid that my “too much”,
Might really be too much.
The plate would snap with heaviness,
Shattering at their feet,
And I would not be worth picking up the pieces.
I am not worth the work it might take to create a mosaic of this big,
huge mess that is my mind.
My biggest fear is that everything is temporary.
I’ve never known any kind of love that’s stuck around-
Aside from my own.
I carry around pieces of everyone who’s hand I’ve ever held,
Tucked gently inside my chest.
I have just enough room for loving all of their flaws,
Right behind my fast beating heart.
I just don’t know if anyone could ever make room for me, that way.
Anyone aside from my handmedown bed,
and depressingly too-familiar blankets.
So once again, as daylight ends, I curl up in a ball there-
Pulling the covers over my head and trying my best to sleep it away.
Maybe tomorrow,
When I open my eyes-
All of my dreams will finally come true.
Maybe tomorrow,
god will find my heart on the list.
