i am falling
and i am lying
broken on the shore
like a ship
dashed on the rocks,
like a fairy
who lost their wings
mid-flight
i am smiling
and i am lying
beside you on your couch
like a person
and their best friend,
like a human
and someone
they trust
i am screaming
and i am lying
on the dirt beneath a mountain
like a bird
that tried to leave the nest too soon,
like a doe
that was forgotten
by her mother
i am leaping
and i am lying
on the hard, wooden floor
like a ice skater
that did not make the jump,
like a dancer
that could not learn
how to stand
i am cold
and i burn myself
just for the warmth
i am on fire
and i drown myself
just to stop the pain
i am reduced to ash
and finally,
i mourn
i am writing
and i am lying
on the blanket my mother crocheted for me
surrounded by stuffed animals
and the steady hum of the crickets
outside my home
(like a crane
standing in the water,
like the sun
slowly rising over the hills
at dawn)
The inspiration behind this was primarily drawn from my struggle to let myself move on from my memories and live. The first few stanzas each introduce a past emotion or feeling – physical pain, love, abandonment, failure – while the last stanzas introduce the concept of coming to terms with those & finding peace. I think that, as humans, we have a natural compulsion to try to lock the more negative parts of our lives deep within ourselves, a tendency that often does more harm than good. I’ve recently been working on identifying when I’m putting my own emotions on lockdown and trying to understand what those emotions are. In a lot of ways, this poem was a study of that.
Editors: Joyce S., Anoushka K., Nadine R.
Cover Source: https://pixels.com/art/crane