Sea

Branches with silver leaves

Swaying gently in the breeze

Behind it a blue morning sky,

Announcing the day to come.

The smell of the sea stings a little,

The sounds of waves crashing in the distance

Remind you of where you are.

And you hear something new,

A guitar, not far,

Voices singing with that morning dissonance,

Inviting heads to turn,

People to come out of tents,

Other morning voices to join.

For a moment,

Despite how

Tired,

Sunburned,

Mosquito-bitten,

Or dirty

You might be,

It feels like you’ve found a patch of heaven on earth.

In this moment everything is fine.

You start humming along to the song,

Slowly getting up from the place you slept,

And you feel like you’ve been here all your life.

You know these strangers by name,

Somehow in the night they became family,

Uncomplicated and open,

And you’re finally home.

 

Trains

Heart beating hollow

Walking between the tracks,

One step too far sideways

Could mean the end,

Or it could lead to freedom,

 

At least until

The train comes.

If it comes.

There might be freedom ahead

But it seems too far,

Uncertain.

Fear keeps your feet

In between the lines,

And your heart dies

With every step you take

There.

 

Is it worth it?

 

Stuck

It’s always when I most need to talk to people
When I most need human contact
That my words fail me

It’s like when my anxiety won’t let me go outside
I can get up and get ready and do anything I want
As long as I’m not doing it to go outside
And as soon as I start trying to leave my body stops responding
I can’t move
I can barely breathe
It’s like my whole being is screaming to not move
So all I can do is stay inside
Because as soon as I stop trying to leave my body relaxes
And I can take back control

Should I just accept that I can’t talk to anyone?
But I need to not be alone
I don’t know what to do
I don’t know how to talk about it
So I just run out of things to say

“They don’t want to talk to you anyway,
you’re just wasting their time.”

They don’t waste my time
There’s no way I’m the only compassionate idiot out there

“No of course you’re not special,
People care about others,
Their best friends,
Their family,
Their lovers.
They don’t care about you.
They barely think about you.”

Well I know that’s not true
I have at least two friends who are about as compassionate as me

“But they already have other problems to worry about.
They can’t worry about you,
You won’t even tell them what’s wrong.”

How can I?
like you said they already have their own problems
I don’t want to add to that

“So you admit it then,
How little you matter.”

I’ve rarely not admitted it
And even when I didn’t
It was only because my self-esteem was getting dangerously low
But if I don’t matter
Then neither do you

“Yet you still listen to me,
Because even I matter more than you do.”

No
That’s not true
I can ignore you
Sometimes I barely hear you
You’re just a poison in my mind
I don’t have to listen to you

“But can you prove me wrong?”

I…
Yes
Yes I can
I’m not alone
I’ll show you

“We’ll see how it goes…
Maybe next time you won’t be so sure.”

 

Alone

I’m fucking tired
It hurts…

“What hurts?”

Everything…

“Why?”

I don’t know
I wish I did
Maybe I could make it stop

“Maybe this is all your fault,
Maybe this is why they leave,
You’re too bothersome.
So you end up alone.”

Maybe
But I know I’m not alone
I need to keep fighting
My friends need my help
I can still be useful

“Why can’t your friends help you?”

They can
Sometimes
But right now they have problems of their own
So I have to deal with this on my own
It’s ok really

“‘Cause you know if you put yourself first they’ll leave.”

 

Moving On

“As you all know,”
Said the big ones
“They’re selling the house,
And we’re making a list,
Of things you might want to keep.”
We looked at each other,
Reluctantly starting;

We wanted
The thick wooden beams
We would climb up on
And the beds underneath them
That we’d jump onto.

We wanted
The trees in the field
That would catch our footballs and rugby and tennis and golf balls,
And the big oak with the rope we’d swing on.

We wanted
The big old trampoline in the garden,
The basketball post and the swimming pool,
And the cherry tree.

We wanted
The big room
That found a new life when 16 cousins
Spent the night talking and hushing each other
On mattresses on its floor.

We wanted
The space under the stairs
Where we’d hide
And grab unwary feet.

We wanted
The big plastic boot
We’d stand in when were small enough
Or wear and try to walk with.

We wanted
The plastic stools and broken guitars
We’d do our private concerts with,
Singing at deodorants next to a pillow fight.

We wanted
The inn we’d created in the barn
With an old table and some crates,
And a few empty bottles to drink out of.

We wanted the grass,
The sun and the rain and the mud,
The rainbows and all the memories we’d created
Year after year.

We wanted the whole house
With its field and its garden and the barn.

We looked at each other,
The big and the small
And the in-betweens,
And we knew we wanted those things
Precisely because they were things
That you could never take away from this place.
They were what made it home,
And no-one would see it like we did until they’d grown up in it,
Felt the rain and the mud,
The sun and the dust,
The spiders and the flies,
The scolding because of dirty shirts
And sleepless nights.

…………………………………………………itsbeensolong……………………

I found this when I was looking through my notes and I just realised I never published it so here it is ^^

According to my notes I wrote (or at least last modified) this poem in march 2016 so two years ago

 

Snippets of Peace

When I’m in a bad place I’ll take any sensory overload I can control. I’ll listen to music loud enough to block out the outside and most of my thoughts. I’ll dive into a film or an episode.

It was raining tonight. As I was waiting for the train I stood outside the station. The train that would take me away from my home and to the house I was trying to escape. I just stood outside, face up towards the rain. It wasn’t a storm, it barely rains hard here, it’s usually no more than a long drizzle but this was a little stronger. I stood in the darkness, cars and people would pass and look at me. Did they think I was high or crazy or suicidal? Perhaps a combination of those. I pushed them away from my mind, I knew they wouldn’t recognise me even if they saw me again. One thing I’ve learned is that people don’t care about those they don’t know, most people forget the faces they see instantly.

I was standing face up, eyes closed in the rain feeling it crash softly against my skin. It felt like a thousand small pokes, each one confirming the same thing: I was still alive. It wasn’t invasive or violent, it was kind of just… there. And it felt good after having felt untouchable for so long. It was a small moment of peace in the middle of all this turmoil. A space where I could breathe without feeling crushed by whatever the world throws at me. I could feel the solid ground at my feet. For a few seconds at a time I felt completely free and I didn’t care who stared, who pushed me down, who made me feel trapped, unwanted, useless, or invisible. I was myself. And I was free.

 

How I Was Made

My aunt always asked me how my ears were so flat… you always told her that they just were, but I realised that maybe it was from all the times that I clamped them to my head with my hands so I wouldn’t hear the yelling.

I’ve been trying to listen to what people are saying for years but even now I still phase out after a while and I have to concentrate on listening. I’ve realised that after a while I’d stopped listening to you when you kept repeating the same things and just expecting my answers to change.

I’m messy, I hate doing things I’m told to and I can’t manage to keep up with people’s expectations of me, no matter how benign. I knew that if I showed you I was capable of certain things like keeping my room tidy and doing all of my homework immediately you would only ask more of me. I tried to lower your expectations so that the pressure would become more bearable and I’d have some time for myself.

I’m bad at saying things, expressing my feelings, speaking my thoughts or ideas and standing up for myself. You would never let me talk back, I was only allowed a few words before you would yell again and they were almost never the right ones. I learned to stay quiet so there would be less reason for you to yell at me.

I’m trying to come out of my shell, I want to be affectionate to the people I care about but it’s so hard and I’m always being awkward about it. You were never very good at expressing your affection and the more time passed the less you tried until I stopped hearing “I love you”.

My friends worry that I’m always trying to help others but I neglect myself. But I remember you calling me selfish as soon as I took so much as a second for me when you or a little brother could’ve used a little help, or when I didn’t leave what I wanted for others when they might’ve wanted it.

I’m a good judge of character, I can notice small changes in a person’s attitude that could indicate that something’s wrong or someone’s mad. You were never openly hostile until you exploded from all the little things in your life that were going wrong. So I had to learn to notice the small changes and signs indicating that you were angry so that I could avoid you or try to soften the metaphorical blow.

You made me, with my strengths and weaknesses and all these problems. You had the biggest part of all in shaping my personality and temperament but we’re so different and we still disagree on many things.

I know who you are, but for all the influence you’ve had in moulding me you still don’t understand much about who I am. I only wish that you could clear your mind of how you think I am and see me for myself, who I’ve become, for once.

 

Broken Mirror

I feel dizzy and my eyes sting, I’m close to falling asleep. I don’t know what time it is, I’ve lost track of time and created a bubble outside of it. The light seeping through the blinds dims after a while and then lights up again slowly. I barely notice it. I’m looking at life through broken glass and I need to know how to fix it. Or at least I don’t want to make it any worse. I need to be alone because every fake smile breaks my heart a little more.

I have my ups and downs, right now I’m more down, almost more than I’ve ever been but I’m still somewhat calm. It’s a fragile calm. A weak, brittle calm that can shatter at the slightest breeze. But for the moment I’m keeping it together. My double bed has become my safe place and my room is a mess and I’m just sitting watching films or series or videos, anything to distract me while I’m awake.

Every time I stay awake a little longer, and every time I wait until the last moment before crashing into sleep. It’s not the sleep I’m afraid of, it’s the moments in between, those moments when it’s only you and the darkness, there’s no music to drown out the unwanted voices, no video to concentrate on, only you. That’s when they whisper…

You’re all aloneNobody caresAs if anyone would notice if you just diedThey don’t want to knowThey’re better off without youYou’re so indiscreteYou can’t keep a secretCan’t be relied onYou’re a terrible friendWhat did you ever do to deserve someoneYou’d be better off dead…

Ringing forever in my head. The voice of self-loathing and all that goes with it. I contradict it at every turn but it gets harder and harder and it finds proof of my uselessness and everything I do wrong crashes down on me and I feel a thousand eyes crushing me with judgement. I never asked for this.

So I look up films to watch and I nibble on my tomatoes and crisps and chocolate and whatever else is lying around. And I stay awake until I’m too tired to think. And I crash into sleep in daylight.

I know I can’t keep this up. I’m riding this moment out but there’s always this little voice saying what if it doesn’t stop?

My heart and mind are in pieces. I can’t think straight and I’m too tired to care. My eyes sting too much.

I’m going to clear my bed and sleep now.

Goodnight.

 

Waiting Days

Some days are better days, some days are worse days. This has been going on for about a month now, it’s never been this long or this bad. But there are different days and not every day is necessarily bad; there can be better days, or good moments even during the bad days. I’ve cried but I’ve smiled and laughed too and that’s part of what makes this bearable. Some days are roller-coasters where I can be happy in one instant and devastated in the next. One thing people might not know though is that some days are just waiting days.

Some days you wake up and you know you’re not going to do anything, sometimes out of a lack of will or motivation, but also sometimes out of choice. Sometimes you just don’t know what to do so you just focus on staying quiet and calm even if that means lying in bed all day. Or you could want to give people a rest, you could be feeling like you’re bothering the world with this and you don’t want to bother… so you waste a day, because you feel like the world is better off without you. It could also be that you don’t or no longer know who to turn to, so instead of burdening or frightening someone you’d rather contain it so at least you’re the only person it hurts. Or at least you hope so, because you can never know how other people are feeling. For me I guess the reason is a bit of everything. So I just move around, usually with music or watching a series to distract me from the deeper thoughts because I’d rather not hear them right now.

It’s sad, I think, how feelings other than “like” or “don’t like” quickly become taboo. How people are afraid of love or depression. Those are things rarely talked about in real life, things kept hushed because strong feelings scare people away. We’ve come to a point where emotion is weakness. When my friends see me mentally unwell most of them just ignore me, are they embarrassed? Are they afraid I’ll drag them down where I am? Or are they just afraid I might break if they touched me? They must know that isolation is a bad thing for me if I’m depressed but they isolate me anyway. No-one prepares you for this: they don’t prepare you for depression and they don’t prepare you for handling people or friends who could be depressed. Maybe something could be done, at school maybe, to talk about feelings instead of making children suppress them. I don’t know.

I’ve thought about dying. And yeah I know that’s not something you’re supposed to say but it’s true. I’ve never completely wanted to die, because I know to some extent what that could do to certain people. So I’ll stay alive to protect them. And I keep telling myself that it’ll get better, it has to, I can’t live like this forever and besides it always gets better. I try to hold on to that hope as much as I can. And I’m trying to be less harsh on myself, the depression is doing more than enough about that. I haven’t tried dying, and I’m hesitant to add “yet” at the end of that phrase, I can’t know what will happen, I can only hope I’ll stay strong enough for it to never happen. I don’t want to die. But sometimes it can be hard to want to live too. It tears me apart, mainly at night, it reminds me of all the times I’ve been rejected, all the bad things said about me, how people must feel about me, all the mistakes I’ve made and I feel like the world would be better off without me and it hurts. It hurts so much. I try to fight it, find counter-examples, but mostly I just try to make it stop because at the time I know that I can’t find enough examples to win. And then I think of what would happen if I died, and I see it happening to the people I love, the tearing apart, and I think “I can endure this for them”, because I don’t want them to feel this pain, ever.

People can be quick to tell you what’s wrong, to tell you off for some mistake you made or yell at you because they misunderstood your actions, people are better at accusing and blaming and insulting than telling others they love them. So it can be hard, when no-one tells you they love you and you have all these voices in your head, and outside of it, telling you what’s wrong with you. People take love for granted, but sometimes we need to hear that we are loved. If someone told me that, I might feel a little better, it could help fight all the bad things. But no-one tells me, because those who love me just take it for granted, they figure I don’t need reminding, but I can feel myself slipping and I’m desperately trying to hold on to anything, and everyone seems to be pulling away. If I just let go now, who would catch me in my fall?

 

Moving Still

You can’t understand how hard it is
To move
Without trembling…

You can’t hear me
Screaming inside
As I say
“I’m fine…”
“Just tired.”

You can’t see exactly how much
It tears me apart
When I smile for you.

You can’t feel what I feel,
How much it hurts
Just to breathe…
And to contain
All the thoughts,
Fear,
Anger,
Self-loathing,
Loneliness,
Self-loathing,
Self-loathing…
Spinning out of control
Self-loathing,
Self-loathing…

I know it’s my fault,
I won’t hold anything against you,
But my heart’s in pieces,
And I just want to stop.
I want it all to stop.
I keep screwing things up,
For me and everyone else.
It’d be better if I just
Let
Go.

I don’t deserve to live,
No matter how much good I may have done
The bad always seems to overshadow it.
I don’t deserve to die,
I would just be causing people pain.
I’d rather keep that pain to myself.
I’ll only,
Very slowly,
Disappear…

And maybe it’ll be enough…
To stop hurting people…
And maybe one day it’ll stop hurting me