What They Didn't Say

They never asked
what I wanted,
or how I felt going this place or that place.
They never asked
why my grades were slipping,
dragging a future down with them.

They asked weighted questions with fear in their eyes
and when they never understood my words
they turned to other things:
my phone was taken off me,
pictures were taken of my legs,
privacy: invaded.

I stuffed so much of the truth down my throat
because I hated the anger, the questions
rather than the softness I needed after the hardships.
I dragged myself back up but tumbled right back down
into a pit I couldn't even name.

Then I dragged and I cried and I punched pillows,
until one day I could say,
I've been one whole year clean
and for someone who had barely gone an hour without the desire
coursing through their entire being
It was a triumph.

I spent that summer working, revising, learning how to function without this need in me--learning how to live with it without caving to it.
I got my grades, I got my certificate, I moved to college.
The sun cracked through: I laughed, I went out, I saw a future right there laid out.
My hardships had ended.

Or so I thought.
It crashed around me sometime three years ago, yanked away before I could blink.
Another thing took root, a thing that had a voice and a face in my mind.

It told that if I left my house the world would end.
It told me that if I tried I would regret it.
It whispered anxiety through my body, spiders crawling over my skin.
It breathed panic into my lungs.

I swallowed my words, met with offense when I talked about it.
So I stayed,
and I hid,
and I'd never hated myself so much as I did watching my life slip away and feeling so helpless.

My friends, leaving one by one, when i couldn't see them.
The voice told me they were bad to me, anyway.
My prospects, dwindling.
The voice told me the pressure was now off.
Until all I had was nothing.

Just me
at a desk
in my room
alone.

And nobody,
not one person said

I see you, I haven't forgotten you. I understand the darkness and I'll be here when you're ready.

Not one person saw my loneliness and said

Please let me come to see you, talk it out with me.

Everything was me: trying, crying, desperately holding on to whatever shred of life I still had.

Issues collided, I spiralled, until all that was left was an empty phone,
an empty life
and the words, you'll send me to an early grave was all I heard.

Let me take your hand
and tell you

I'll be okay

because after all this
I still believe I will.


I'll write and I'll dance and I'll laugh and I'll find genuine happiness;
but I'll remember those who left me and those who weren't there when I needed them,
those who let me slip away when I was trying to hold on.

And at the end of the day I'll smile;
That's all what will matter.