#but i lost hope in the peron i might have accidentally written it for

[the-timony-souler]

questions to ask yourself when you are tired of running in circles

do you have someone to call at 3am - when it feels like your whole world is falling apart?

when the silence is too loud and opening your eyes doesn’t end the nightmares when there are too many unanswered questions and thinking out loud is the only way to untangle memories that stained your teeth because you thought swallowing them would somehow stop the bleeding only now every time you try to smile nothing but the hurt shines through and all you learned is that you’re only beautiful when you’re covered in scars because the world needs everything to be imperfect to condone caring about it

will you actually call them?

and when you do will you dance around the secrets that gnaw at your insides trying to escape into the light – where maybe they won’t seem quite as monstrous as they feel when they’re locked up inside you – and maybe a problem shared becomes a solution when you let someone else shine a light on it but you never really learned how to put words to it and the weight of the burden you’re breaking under is far too heavy for somebody else’s shoulders and you’ve always been too proud to accept the hands that have offered to help bear the load but maybe leaving pieces of it buried behind you under the glass you crawled over to get here will let the broken bones heal and maybe you’ll figure out how to do that someday

when you think of love does it feel like healing or hurt?

you always say nothing is ever easy and nothing is ever free and the stitches that wind their way through your heart are proof enough of that – so why bother to think about love when all it’s ever been is hurt but remind yourself that for every one that broke you there was another there to help patch you up with golden needle and spider-web silk marking your heart with soft glows instead of hard blows because fists and cigarette burns leave nothing but cold and you never knew how to keep yourself warm without someone else setting you on fire first

are you happy – right now, in this moment, in this exact version of yourself?

Knowing the answer to that question is next to impossible but you are not who you used to think you are – who you thought you were supposed to be but what is happiness anyway and how are you supposed to decide if this is it if smiles are only used to mask the pain and laughter hides all the things you can’t say out loud but maybe that’s just what happiness looks like

is there a single thing you would change about who you are right now?

you let someone else dictate who and what you should be and you never questioned why you let their standards erase your own- and now you’ve gone and exhausted yourself chasing the myth of ‘enough’ without ever stopping to look in the mirror and realising that you have always been enough- because when you stand still your soul shines bright on kindnesses you planted in soil everyone said would never nourish but you'll keep running never looking back and you'll never run far enough – see they lied when they told you that stopping is failing and you tied those words around your neck never wondering why you chose to wear the noose

do you know how to?

there's never been a single thing you couldn't do when you put your mind to it – except being soft and kind to yourself- and you can't remember a time when it wasn't you against the world alone and lost and hopeless and helpless so you learned the only thing darkness and demons can ever teach: to build impenetrable walls that only ever locked you in to arm yourself for battles that you will on ever fight against yourself to hurt them before they tear open old wounds and new and through all of this you will snuff out anything that could begin to resemble hope but there’s always that one stubborn star that refuses to stop glowing even after it has long been pronounced dead and dust – and it will name itself chance- the chance to surrender your defences, the chance to throw down your weapons the chance to remove the armour that only ever bound and suffocated – and chance will become hope and become dream and become love and faith and trust and you will learn that you can be soft and you can be kind when you stop seeing what you expect and start looking for something you’ve never known before

but do you actually want to?

you will start tomorrow – because it’s a ‘new day, new you’ kind of moment and you will make promises the same way you make up lies to decorate the home you never got to build- and tomorrow will come to hear you say “i am too tired now, i’ll start tomorrow, after i’ve gotten some rest” – but you do not know how to stop running away from the ghosts that live inside your ribcage – beating a rhythm that never lets you think of something that could be more than this and every tomorrow will be just like today and so will the lies you keep telling yourself

#poetry #spilled ink #poem #i think this was meant to be hopeful #but i lost hope in the peron i might have accidentally written it for #and i'm pretty sure they'll never find the way out #but i hope the rest of us do #anyway it wasn't good enough for the lit festival so i can share it with the world now