I didn't even know I felt grief until that word came, until I felt rain streaming from me.
I wish I could tell you of my hurt.
Oh god I wish more than anything that I could will it away and crawl back into yesterdays and pull them above my head where under the covers hope was lying still.
I am a decimal of a part of a portion of a whole.
There is something inside of me that I can't explain, I can't put to words what makes me detach, what makes me implode. I do it, I do it every fucking day and I want to drop it at your feet and point, hit my knees and beg you to make the pieces fit.
I am empty, I am the bottom dropping out. Think it angst, think it an excuse, think it meaningless, a passing lie of sorrow. But I can't feel fulfilled, I've lost that instinct, there's something plaguing me and I cannot starve it off. It wells up within me, condensates, spills, ferments and I take draught after draught.
I did not start off this way. Oh no, cheerful, giddy, chipper Hallie did not begin from behind. He saw it first, ran from it, and I never told you that that was the real reason because my sad love was not what he could swallow. But I have spiraled and all the notionless and unfounded Pain sits there and smiles tapping a foot, always to ebb away when I try to make him plain to others. I have no reason for this, no traumatic experiences mar my past, I have had it no harder than others, I am a falsified victim of my own dismay. It is a burden that sits heavily upon my chest, to stop sleep and hunger and emotion in any tangible form. Kill it, won't you? Tell it to let me smile without a shadow, to mean the foreign words fumbling from my lips. There is a hole and I will not let you fall, I will not even let you stumble, I will retreat and leave all of you with the wrong impression, for the truth makes that look glorious.
I cannot tell you what makes me sad, what is wrong, I cannot tell myself. But I would fold the hurt carefully, address it to oblivion if I could. I would cup it between my palms and send it to the gusts of tomorrow, I would press it with salt to your cheek.
I have tried to tell you, all of you, so many times. I have caught the tone of admittance in my throat and send it reeling back into denial. I have hugged you with a facade of arms and steadiness.
But no more.
No fucking more.
There is something in me blocking my speech, keeping my pen from paper, closing the door to my room and my life.
This is no cry for help, merely an explanation so that this elusive despair cannot ebb away beneath my clumsiness before I reveal it, before I stand raw in a losing battle.
I am messed up.
And I am sorry even more.
I've visited the place
where thought begins:
pear trees suspended in sunlight, narrow shops,
alleys to nothing
but nettles
and broken wars:
and though it might look different
to you:
a seaside town, with steep roofs
the colour of oysters,
the corner of some junkyard with its glint
of coming rain,
though someone else again would recognize
the warm barn, the smell of milk,
the wintered cattle
shifting in the dark,
it's always the same lit space,
the one good measure:
Sometimes you'll wake in a chair
as the light is fading,
or stop on the way to work
as a current of starlings
turns on itself
and settles above the green,
and because what we learn in the dark
remains all our lives,
a noise like the sea, displacing the day's
pale knowledge,
you'll come to yourself
in a glimmer of rainfall or frost,
the burnt smell of autumn,
a meeting of parallel lines,
and know you were someone else
for the longest time,
pretending you knew where you were, like a diffident tourist,
lost on the one main square, and afraid to enquire.
- John Burnside
Oh god I wish more than anything that I could will it away and crawl back into yesterdays and pull them above my head where under the covers hope was lying still.
I am a decimal of a part of a portion of a whole.
There is something inside of me that I can't explain, I can't put to words what makes me detach, what makes me implode. I do it, I do it every fucking day and I want to drop it at your feet and point, hit my knees and beg you to make the pieces fit.
I am empty, I am the bottom dropping out. Think it angst, think it an excuse, think it meaningless, a passing lie of sorrow. But I can't feel fulfilled, I've lost that instinct, there's something plaguing me and I cannot starve it off. It wells up within me, condensates, spills, ferments and I take draught after draught.
I did not start off this way. Oh no, cheerful, giddy, chipper Hallie did not begin from behind. He saw it first, ran from it, and I never told you that that was the real reason because my sad love was not what he could swallow. But I have spiraled and all the notionless and unfounded Pain sits there and smiles tapping a foot, always to ebb away when I try to make him plain to others. I have no reason for this, no traumatic experiences mar my past, I have had it no harder than others, I am a falsified victim of my own dismay. It is a burden that sits heavily upon my chest, to stop sleep and hunger and emotion in any tangible form. Kill it, won't you? Tell it to let me smile without a shadow, to mean the foreign words fumbling from my lips. There is a hole and I will not let you fall, I will not even let you stumble, I will retreat and leave all of you with the wrong impression, for the truth makes that look glorious.
I cannot tell you what makes me sad, what is wrong, I cannot tell myself. But I would fold the hurt carefully, address it to oblivion if I could. I would cup it between my palms and send it to the gusts of tomorrow, I would press it with salt to your cheek.
I have tried to tell you, all of you, so many times. I have caught the tone of admittance in my throat and send it reeling back into denial. I have hugged you with a facade of arms and steadiness.
But no more.
No fucking more.
There is something in me blocking my speech, keeping my pen from paper, closing the door to my room and my life.
This is no cry for help, merely an explanation so that this elusive despair cannot ebb away beneath my clumsiness before I reveal it, before I stand raw in a losing battle.
I am messed up.
And I am sorry even more.
I've visited the place
where thought begins:
pear trees suspended in sunlight, narrow shops,
alleys to nothing
but nettles
and broken wars:
and though it might look different
to you:
a seaside town, with steep roofs
the colour of oysters,
the corner of some junkyard with its glint
of coming rain,
though someone else again would recognize
the warm barn, the smell of milk,
the wintered cattle
shifting in the dark,
it's always the same lit space,
the one good measure:
Sometimes you'll wake in a chair
as the light is fading,
or stop on the way to work
as a current of starlings
turns on itself
and settles above the green,
and because what we learn in the dark
remains all our lives,
a noise like the sea, displacing the day's
pale knowledge,
you'll come to yourself
in a glimmer of rainfall or frost,
the burnt smell of autumn,
a meeting of parallel lines,
and know you were someone else
for the longest time,
pretending you knew where you were, like a diffident tourist,
lost on the one main square, and afraid to enquire.
- John Burnside