Change

Change

Pain tight chest and no breath.
Panic, if I can't breathe I'll die,
swallowed by nothing suffocated and no longer existing.
Red mixed with black, spiky, changing
morphing to the evil dark inside me.
No light,
No good,
never ending black.
Overwhelmed and unable to contain.
Taking over becoming all that I am
no light just black spiky shifting muck.
Not worth time
not worth anyone
or anything.

A shift
a change
small as anything
tiny
in the bottom, the smallest pinprick.
Still hers.
Grey, lighter movement.
Falling slowly, sinking gurgling, slurping, tired
bone weary and small.
Bitter to the taste yet clear around the edges.
A small grain amongst the twisted mess of everything
small and hard to recognise,
but present.
Aware.
As it's acknowledged, growing slowly
so slowly.
Painfully releasing my chest.
Breath comes back in
The black and red swirl moving, shifting, changing
Her. Not gone but
listened to,
heard
able to let the light remain.

Michaela Sheehan

2019




I debated even typing this one up. This was written after a hard session where my earlier work (at therapy) had been to write what I felt about myself in that moment. The page I wrote it on was ripped out and folded up and I know I never intended to read it again after that moment. I found it today in amongst my things. It feels like a lifetime ago yet many of my thoughts still have the same taste and feel.