Sharp Edges | Poem

Sharp Edges

I try not to lean too far

into the dark.

There are a hundred reasons

why not me

but I don't name them.

Not anymore.

When I was young, a counsellor said,

"Stop throwing pity parties."

Told me I didn't deserve pity.

And maybe she was right.

I have bipolar.

There isn't always a warning

no slow build,

no edge I can see coming.

Just thunder,

sudden and silent,

caught behind my ribs.

Joy drains into stillness.

Laughter slips

into tight-lipped silence.

They say my eyes give it away.

"It's all in the brows," they joke,

as if grief is that easy to read.

Tonight, I'm sick.

Fevered. Rambling.

And somehow, this place

this familiar room in my head

opens again.

The one with no doors.

Only mirrors.

I like myself. I do.

But when someone says

they love me

not just love,

but more than

I hesitate, I flinch.

I believe I deserve love.

But when it comes,

I don't trust it.

I wonder

who they think they see.

Whose softness

they've mistaken

for mine.

Because I know me

awkward, guarded,

always looking over my shoulder.

My walls have walls.

And beneath them,

a heart like a maze

of glass and wire

reflective, and sharp enough to bleed.

So I pull back.

Not to protect myself

but them.

From the pieces I hide.

From the fear

that I'm too much.

Or worse

not enough.

So.

This is the end

of tonight's rambling.

No ribbon.

No resolve.

Only this:

There is

no positive

here.

I wrote this when I was ill a few weeks back. I'm in a much more positive place now, but. Yeah. Mental health awareness month so! :)

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