I am afraid.
I am afraid because I am here
And I want to walk away
But instead I am right here.
I sit here.
Why
Do I sit here?
I think I'm doing it
Just to see how long I can.
It's like holding your fingers over a burning candle
To see how long you can stand the heat
Before your skin blisters
And you pull away, defeated.
I sit still.
I always sit still when it hurts.
I think stillness
Started a few years ago.
When I first hit the ground
I was afraid to breathe.
It was like I had been dropped from a high bridge onto a concrete sidewalk
Below
And I knew
Knew beyond any doubt
That things were broken.
Things inside were very very broken.
Things were splintered and punctured,
And if I moved, even to draw a breath,
I would bleed out right there.
I think that's when the stillness started.
And now whenever I am hurt
Whenever something hits me
I go still as stone
Except for shaking hands
That flutter, fragile and white, until I clasp them tight together.
The world moves around me
Under me
But I stay still as death
Not even daring to breathe
As if I will be found
As if I will tear apart into a million shreds of wasted paper
And drift to the floor.
I stay so still my muscles ache.
I never cry.
I can't cry.
I just sit there and feel how peculiar the sense of damage is.
How odd it is to be full of explosions and debris whipping around inside
An utterly motionless body.
And part of me, even as I feel
Just sick
With how much I know I'd die if my body betrayed my anguish in real injury
Part of me looks on from above,
From without,
With a detached analysis
Of this and that
Of just where I feel this blow
And this stabbing pain,
Of just how each moment changes me.
I freeze like ice outside
And burn like hell inside.
It is the most curious sensation in the world
And I hate it so much I would die to escape it.
And yet when it comes upon me
I do nothing
Nothing at all.
I say nothing.
I turn to stone, part by part,
My fingers
My elbows
My shoulders,
My legs
My stomach
My neck
Like I'm being submerged in drying cement
And finally my lungs
Stone
My jaw
Stone
My lips
My throat
The top of my head
Stone.
Until all that is left
Are my eyes
Just watching.
I am paralyzed
And I look out on a world in motion
Whirling, spinning.
Moments before I was a part of the rhythm like a heartbeat
But that was moments ago,
And we all know how much can change in just a moment.
When I am stone
You can come at me with a chisel
And I will say nothing.
Bang bang bang
And little chunks come off
A shard of my cheek
A finger at the joint
The swell of my collarbone,
They crumble when struck
But I can't move an inch.
I sit still.
I always sit still.
My stillness is the waiting.
It is the wish
To destroy.
It is the craving
Hot and metallic
To do something
To slice away how much I hate my own helplessness.
It is knowing that there is a relief
Besides just being saved.
There is a way to save myself
From this chaos inside
A way to feel better
Instantaneously.
My stillness is the resistance
The longing and the "No, I can't."
The firm denial
Cold as ice
Hard as granite.
Is it strong to let the world dismantle you by the inch
When you know you could get there first?
Is it strong to sit and take take take
And do nothing whatsoever?
Is a statue strong
Or is it just
Trapped?