So much time has passed. But I’m still the little girl that hid under her bed. Still the one that tried to hide her trembling hands when dawn came. Still the one who stopped talking. I’m still the teenage girl who started hating what she saw in the mirror, the one who stopped eating. The one who started wearing long sleeves and nights became unbearable, and the sadness buried itself under her bones. Where I lost a bit of me, a bit of soul and a bit of joy with each year that passed. All the times that I thought I got better, but I didn’t. The fake smiles, the false assurances, the honeyed words that were nothing but lies. The thorns that grew, the barbed wire wrapped around my skin keeping everyone out.
The poison that entered my lungs, the self-destructive blur of the years that were supposed to be my best. The loss, the guilt, the pain. The rare rays of sunlight that broke through the darkness.The people I treasure so deeply, but I can never quite be the one I am. Because I’m still her. Her who stumbled through the dark streets at night when I didn’t know if I would be there to see the sunrise. When I bleed and bleed, and I tried and tried. The time when I became the cliché burnt out gifted kid and I laughed when they talked about wasted talent, got wasted instead to wash away the taste of losing something right. Way to young. Too tired to care.
Now an adult but still the wounds are too raw, even though I try to be though. Where my kindness feels like a weakness and I try to better. I try. I try. But still. I pretend I don’t notice how I get quieter, I eat less, I sleep all day and stare at the ceiling all night long. Why, oh why? Why am I still the same? Should I not know more of the world and all its ugly truths than the little girl, then why do I still hide under the bed and hide my trembling hands? Should I not know better than the teenage girl and finally learn to love the body that I hurt over and over again, but has loved me regardless ? Should my thorns not have grown flowers by now and the barbed wire disappeared? Still the girl who dumps her feelings and secrets in endless notebooks and washes the ink of her stained fingers. Still her, still me. All the battles fought, all the battles won but have never won the war.
Still her, still me.
Could I have stopped it all?
Still her, still me.
© Alissa Krohnen 2023-09-18