I am unsure what I am made of.
Most of the time I am:
Half at peace
One third a mixture of confidence
And intended kindness
And the rest passive disquiet
This slice of anxiety is a vacant gap
Where the piece was cut and lifted out
To be devoured or thrown away
It’s fate unknown
The space is constantly changing size
Only a sliver most days
but some
Nearly the whole pie is missing
A permeating emptiness
That slowly carves away at everything
It can grow like vines around my limbs
Slowly snaking around my throat
A serpent poised and ready to strike
Paralytic poison quick and complete
The air choked from my lungs
And replaced with hardened concrete
Other times my heart swells
And the empty part shrinks to almost nothing
Like poppies that need a hard winter
To bloom and fill my chest with warmth
And overwhelm the fracture of hollowness
Any small thing can create this chemical reaction:
The sun on my winter-chapped skin
Heating my body out of its hibernation
The mutual smile between people in love
That says everything without words
Diving into the worlds created by written words
Spending hours living in their universe
until you must come back to the real thing
The problem is the return
Days or weeks may go by
Living on borrowed time
Until the void will inevitably start to grow
And swallow up everything again
Like an undertow pulling me down
The water rushing and sweeping overtop
The surface becomes too far away to reach anymore
It is a constant balancing act
To manage this ratio to a point that is livable
But lately the vacuum is less potent
It no longer has the same arresting nature
I have learned ways of stopping it
Or at least slowing it down
Sometimes I still lose
But those times grow shorter and shorter
And I win more often than not.
Apr 11, 2021
Apr 11, 2021 at 4:38 PM UTC
I am unsure what I am made of.
Most of the time I am:
Half at peace
One third a mixture of confidence
And intended kindness
And the rest passive disquiet
This slice of anxiety is a vacant gap
Where the piece was cut and lifted out
To be devoured or thrown away
It’s fate unknown
The space is constantly changing size
Only a sliver most days
but some
Nearly the whole pie is missing
A permeating emptiness
That slowly carves away at everything
It can grow like vines around my limbs
Slowly snaking around my throat
A serpent poised and ready to strike
Paralytic poison quick and complete
The air choked from my lungs
And replaced with hardened concrete
Other times my heart swells
And the empty part shrinks to almost nothing
Like poppies that need a hard winter
To bloom and fill my chest with warmth
And overwhelm the fracture of hollowness
Any small thing can create this chemical reaction:
The sun on my winter-chapped skin
Heating my body out of its hibernation
The mutual smile between people in love
That says everything without words
Diving into the worlds created by written words
Spending hours living in their universe
until you must come back to the real thing
The problem is the return
Days or weeks may go by
Living on borrowed time
Until the void will inevitably start to grow
And swallow up everything again
Like an undertow pulling me down
The water rushing and sweeping overtop
The surface becomes too far away to reach anymore
It is a constant balancing act
To manage this ratio to a point that is livable
But lately the vacuum is less potent
It no longer has the same arresting nature
I have learned ways of stopping it
Or at least slowing it down
Sometimes I still lose
But those times grow shorter and shorter
And I win more often than not.