Dear friend,
It is quiet,
it is oh so quiet.
You said it would be; I never
quite believed you though.
The silence is rather loud,
yet comforting.
However, I’m not sure what to do with it.
My bones, in a continuous cycle of survival,
they were never taught to exist.
Is this what it feels like?
The muse of my suffering ended,
so naturally, my peace began.
I guess I should live it now.
It is oh so quiet though,
I shall let you know if I survive.
Sorry … my bones still believe they must fight.
I shall let you know if all is well,
love rosie
I wrote this poem a year ago, as I began to reflect on what life feels like after the storm. I feel that when anyone goes through something hard to navigate, no one really discusses what happens after the aftermath. When something turbulent happens, whether that be a death, you’ve been hurt in some way, or something turns your world on its axis, what happens when it’s all over? When the storm has passed. You’re no longer being swept by the current but learning to swim with the tide. It can be a bewildering feeling to ask yourself, “How do I do this?”
In my poetry, I like to reflect a lot on silence, how it can be comforting yet debilitating. There is nothing louder than the silence between you and your own thoughts. Screaming to be acknowledged. So what happens when you do? You acknowledged it: the grief, the pain, the suffering. You’ve done the work. The therapy, medication, reached for whatever it is that made you feel alive again. What then? When you’re taught to survive, it can be hard to live.
And that is what I wanted to put into words. When a friend checks on you and, for once in your life, you have no news, no anxiety to spiral, no harshness of a recent depressive episode, no consuming grief. Just you, existing. How does one do that? What does it feel like to sit with a book again? To actually enjoy it and not be poisoned by nagging thoughts and anxiety? To enjoy films without your mind being a ticking time bomb. To return to the girl who loved to get lost in worlds paradoxed to her own, before life began to chip away at her heart of creativity.
Themes touched on here are grief, mental health, anxiety, and depression. These topics can be hard to discuss, but literature helps me understand them. To read someone else talk about the same thing I have gone through and help me feel a little bit less alone is my comfort: novels, poetry, a bloody play from 500 years ago. Any form connects to me profoundly.
I hope you enjoy my poem; I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts/ stories if you wish to share in the comments below! :)