I'm leaning back in my chair again.
Divided stability.
Courage and fear spit at each other.
Equal opportunity,
Yet courage always forfeits.

My empty gut plunges,
and I'm forgetting how to fall.
How am I here again?
So careful not to lean back;
I can't afford to.

I'm so fragile.
Forced to move.
Unstable, unsure, unbalanced.
I'm behind myself;
A defunct marionette.
All overwhelming,
All this everything,
Sewn tightly with panic.
Silence is louder than sound,
But not louder than this hammer in my chest.
Please loosen up,
So I can breath again.
Expired oxygen.

If I wasn't so stubborn,
I'd be gone by now.
If I didn't fight,
Against my body's violent scheme.
If I didn't hunt for safety,
From the bottom of this pit.

I clamber out each time,
Wearing the trauma like a growth.
In the way that I move,
The fear.
In the way that I speak,
The fear.
The fear of leaning back in my chair again.