For the next two days
I'll be off and away
In the middle of nowhere
Where no one wants to be

For the next two days
I'll have no electronics
And that means no phone
And that means, I won't be on here

For the next two days
I hope you all can forgive me
For I will be forced to take a break

Colour-coded lists
with satisfying check marks
Tally for self-worth score
Free time is a dead wasteland
Work compulsion conquers all

Work is my savoir
Proof that I have use
Grateful for the gift
of structured daily toil

I don’t need a break
I am far too strong
I am made to stand
in any roaring storm

Endlessly on point
I cannot relax
Maybe I should take
a class in calming down

Another degree
Major in stillness
Minor in poems,
music, walks and gardens

What happens to me
While I do ‘leisure’?
What will I be worth
when I take time for me?

When days are rough at work, and heat is high
My self-esteem is carried by a role
To prove each working day that I am fine
And value comes from actions to assist
At frantic pace that slowly dents my soul

Beware when job and self strong-overlap
Identity is blank beyond my job
Then molehills swell to snowy mountain range
Allotments to sheep stations in my mind
And working day and night a sleeve-worn slog

Befogged in role, befuddled in self-worth
In muddled shame, obscured by guilt and fear
With added slow fatigue and hopelessness
And where do your needs end, and mine begin?
All rules of world and life become unclear

Learn to take time off
Negotiate with myself
New type of self-worth
Creative time, open field
Discovery nurtures all

Once a naive child
Sought after the sea
To feel as vivid blue
As the depths of it

Ventured in too far
Got swallowed by a wave
Trapped into the waters
Dissolving into them

Hence why I have no body
No place to keep my soul
Passed on all my sorrows
To waves crashing on the shore

When I'm asked
"Are you an introvert of an extrovert?"
I respond
"It depends who I'm with"

I fear you
Everyday
Every moment
You're a silent scream
always taunting me
You're unpredictable
Will I see tomorrow?
Will they see a tomorrow?
Why am I still in bed worrying
When there's a whole world?
I fear the last times
The last times I don’t even know are last times
My head takes me to places no one wants to go
You take them away from us
Anyone has the power to use you
We have to trust each other
But not too much
to avoid you

Dear death,
How dare you?

In class
When someone spots my bleeding thumb
Before saying anything to me
Thinking anything
They raise their hand
And say
"Mrs. S! Mrs. S! She's bleeding!

My head screams
"No no no no no"
As I walk to the nurse
What will she say?
What will she do?
Will she ask me questions?
Luckily she didn't
She barely glanced at me
And told me where the bandaids were
Phew!

I wonder what would happen if she saw how bad it looked though...