Moving Places Leaves Me Drained
A poem on pain and discomfort
Moving places leaves me drained,
the funny thing is no matter how weak and
sunken I look from the outside
on the inside, I am stuffed with platters
full of bite-sized ‘help’.
now if it were resting in my gut,
I’ll shove my fingers down the throat and
puke out all the restlessness and anxiety,
but the damn thing is cleverly clinging to my heart,
getting pumped in my entire body, in place of oxygen.
On some days I wish for a heart with the auto cut setting, like those automatic washing machines, the moment water crosses the limit it stops the gush, see what I mean?
but no,
the unsettling rubatosis would instead leave you deaf
to your own voice
the words will be lip syncing but suddenly you’ll turn blind
so as a coping mechanism, I build a synagogue in my head where
words relentlessly pray till they are heard
and I try,
I try to act like god
and build a staircase with my fingers
so words reach the paper and
attain Meraki
but I fail
I fail as
my fingers crumble and scatter like confetti
celebrating the words that died
when they slipped off the staircase,
never attained Meraki.
Moving places leaves me scarred
my skin singed in remembrance of the places that once lived in me
and if you look closely it’s all those places that I have become.
Now I know that if I don’t go
people will come to me disguised as mockery
places will come to me disguised as regrets
things will come to me disguised as dwellings
but I keep telling myself again and again and
again
that no matter how many places I settle in,
or people I take in
or things I accept and abandon
I’ll be alright as long as
I don’t forget
that there will always be a home I can go back to
and that home is
me.
~P.
