My thoughts they can't be quieted
They're so much louder than before My aching pain won't go away It's all too impossible to ignore I feel the strength within myself As it slowly shrivels away And the voice inside me's silenced The one that's saying it's okay No comfort seems quite comforting No soothing really soothes There's an emptiness within my core And a weight I can't remove I never thought I'd feel this way So defeated and so used These feelings keep resurfacing Suppression's a crutch I try to abuse I doubt I'll ever understand The meaning of this world The pain enclosed within it Destroying beauty at each turn There's corruption and there's brokenness We've all heard that before But what we've also heard I pray's not a lie I really do hope that there is more For if there's not then what use have we For the turning of each day When all that waits is misery And a pain that won't go away. Kinda dark, right? There's a reason I never like sharing my poetry. It's vulnerable. It's not always happy. And it certainly creates a dissonance between the perfectly filtered, perfectly captioned and perfectly happy looking me in the picture I just posted. I see the pictures others post and it's largely the same. There's a picture of a friend of mine laughing, enjoying herself on a night out. There's a picture someone took on a morning hike: a mountain side littered with trees who can't seem to decide whether or not they're ready to lose their leaves for winter. These moments, these pictures are undeniably beautiful. But I'm starting to find beauty in things that don't traditionally fit that category. There's a beauty in brokenness. In humanity. In the small reminders that we're not alone. I was reminded of this about a month ago, today, after hearing a haunting, beautiful journal shared by a girl I didn't know. I may not have known her, but still, I felt her pain. I felt the desperation she felt. I felt the hopelessness. I understood the sting of seeing a loved one slip away from both who they once were and who the two of you could be together, when you were with them. I understood the panic of feeling yourself slip away, too. The out of control sense of desperation. The deep desire of wanting to pull yourself out of the depths. And the deep despair of not knowing if you're strong enough to do that. As I listened to the words she spoke, I found myself. And it was beautiful. The human experience is not one to always be viewed through a rose colored lens. There's a whole spectrum of emotion we each experience, but don't talk about. It's easy to bring up the happy moments. And while I'm not suggesting we all embrace our inner Eeyore, Squidward, Scrooge, or whatever you want to call it, I do think it's important to not discount the less pretty side of our emotional spectrum. The better we get at hiding the pain, the weakness and the darkness that weaves its way in and out of our lives, the more alone we feel when it finds us. You see the happy pictures, the Facebook post about the new job position your friend will happily accept. But you don't see that the people in the pictures or posts or smiling back at you behind the counter of your favorite coffee shop are each fighting battles of their own. Just like you are. These battles are dark. These battles are messy. But there's comfort knowing others are fighting their own. We can share in our battles and our pains and can connect, really connect, with each other when we let these things surface: when we share with others and let them into the world we would rather keep hidden. And it doesn't matter how we share. It can be through a song, book, poem, conversation, work of art. It doesn't matter how we express it, as long as we expose it. That's when the connection happens. That's when the beauty of shared humanity unfolds. So, I'm not perfect. I can have anxieties and fears and feel moments when darkness seems to overpower everything else I feel. But, I can also share in these moments, overcome in these moments and find beauty in the moments. It's important to not be so damn perfect all the time. None of us ever really are.
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Turning Pages
Enjoying and learning from this chapter as the pages turn |