Aquarium
Every day is swimming day.
Just keep swimming, they
say.
But to swim endlessly—back
and forth, back and forth, back and
forth—in the corners my life has become
Is actually aimless
roaming of trying to survive day to day in a trap, in chains, in memories.
It looks pretty normal.
After all, swimming is what I’m supposed to do.
You see, they don’t see,
that there’s nothing to cling to
No one to hold, no one to
save,
nowhere else to go
But back and forth, back
and forth, back and forth.
In the seeming calmness of
the waters
Lies someone who’s
screaming inside
Yet no one seems to hear
Because I am still
swimming
I breathe an air of
despair and it chokes me
It hurts so bad that I…
I forget how to breathe
and I remind myself
Inhale, exhale, you can
breathe..
Even breathing is an
effort.
You worthless piece of
shit—
How can you fail in such
an easy task?
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| Source: The Spruce |
As everything passes by at
a blur
And it’s strange because
you’re sitting very still
And the world just moves
around, very fast.
Like people just move
around, making plans, getting married, having babies
they are going actual
places and doing something about their lives
while I’m stuck here in
the very same spot they left
not knowing how to move on
or get out of this hellhole.
What is wrong, they ask?
Are you sad?
Sad is for rainy days that
disappears when the sun comes out.
I, however, live in a sea
of pain. I am broken with scars no one else sees
Living is pain. I am in
pain.
I wake up, I am in pain.
I go to work, I am in
pain.
I see a newborn baby, I am
in pain.
I see someone getting
engaged or getting married, I am in pain.
Every 1st, 11th,
15th, 18th, 19th, 24th, 25th,
31st is pain.
Every anniversary—wedding,
death, birth: pain, pain, pain.
Every damn day is painful,
with memories, with what could-have-beens, with what-ifs.
It doesn’t matter if the
memories are happy or sad.
They eventually become
daggers that go straight to my bleeding heart
I look at myself in the
mirror and it only reflects an image of a worthless failure.
I was so used of feeling
worthless that it has become my norm.
I can’t remember the last
time I felt that someone really saw me, that I was truly loved,
Truly embraced for who I
am.
I feel worthless
Because they all died and
I survived.
If I’m not hurting myself,
I’m hurting everyone around me.
If I don’t do a flip flop,
no one will take a second look, a deeper look.
“Oh, she did that! I
didn’t know she could do that!”
But they only see the flip
flops.
And the exhibitions.
They don’t see the everyday struggle to just
swim.
They don’t hear the
screams, the plea, the hopelessness.
They don’t know that I
feel pressured, trapped, like there will never be a way out.
I feel so alone.
I feel so scared of them
seeing who I truly am.
Else they would take me
out and leave me alone.
But then everybody gets
tired of me eventually.
And they will leave at
some point.
They all do.
Move on, they say.
Everything has a purpose, they say.
But what purpose is a life
surrounded by death?
Did you know how many
times I wanted to give up?
Did you know how many
times I thought about ending it?
Tell me, then---
How do you keep going when
the worst things happened?
What do I have to change
inside to survive?
How do you run away from
things that are making residence in your head?
What do I need to do for
all this pain to be gone?
And so I swim in a sea of
darkness, of infinite space, of living in fear.
I am living in a nightmare,
by which the only time I wake is when I go to sleep.
And in my dreams, I
scream, “Make it stop. Make it go away. Please.”
I wish I couldn’t feel
anything,
I wish I can just drown my
pain away,
but then, the damn thing learned how to swim.
I’m here but I’m not.
Someone cares but they
don’t understand.
I feel like I belong
somewhere..
Anywhere but here.
Just keep swimming, they
say.
I’d rather float.
Maybe they’ll notice and
look
Maybe they’ll give another
glance.
Maybe they’ll understand
what life took
Maybe they’ll give me
another chance.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
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