Dear Life,


For the longest time,
I’ve been complacent in this little nook I dug for myself,
a stagnant existence,
happy…
could be happier…
but happy,
and that’s what I wanted, right?
That’s what counts?
That’s what I worked towards for so long?

What’s that cliché?
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it?
Yeah, don’t fix it.
Cover me in silence,
fill me up with good enough,
and settle if it’s so.
Who needs to strive for amazing?

You haven’t thrown me any curveballs in a while.
Maybe what I thought was healing
was just a piece of me that grew numb.
You’ve changed the plan mid-play.
Are you really trying to fail me?
Is it your goal to get into my every crevice
simply to pull out each emotion you can find
and witness what it does to me?
I’m not sure my bat is still strong enough;
it hasn’t been used in so long.
I could swing,
but I’d miss,
and I can’t handle missing any more.
I forgot what it felt like to have so much uncertainty
lodged under my fingertips,
to see one pitch after another too late
and not even realize it until a giant, blue welt
appears on my skin.
I’m terrified of your throws,
because something might shake up my world
and break me all over again.
I can’t,
I won’t
go back to that place.

Instincts scream to hide in the corner of the cage,
construct a shelter
in peace.

But,
dear Life,
my heart…
my heart tugs at my puppet strings
to grasp the bat in my hands,
walk up to the plate,
and find you face-to-face,
“because this time
maybe,
just maybe…
we’ll hear ourselves collide.”
In a barely-audible whisper,
it says,
“I think you’ve missed enough.”


Signed,
Scared & Confused