Internal conflict

[Jess sidwell]

Explaining my feelings to people
Is a conversation.
My feelings are shapeshifters.
One day, they are as small as a firefly
in the paw of a lion.
The next, they are the lion,
On those days, they are ferocious.
Although they don’t roar
they remain silent.


In these dark days, people say,
“Try meditating,”
But when I am the one meditating,
I see flesh, tattooed, motionless.


The flicker of a flame
Sparks of a memory,
younger than today,
beside his casket.
It is the moment I grasp
life's overwhelming idea.


Grief is like shattered glass,
Constantly, driving shards into a wound.
Wither and fall like an autumn leaf,
from this deep sorrow.
Grief's bitter cold despair consumes me,
like a winter storm on the vast angry sea
This is the debt I pay
Just for one extra day
With you.

Panic, worry, and darkness closing in around me,
nothing I can say could speak of its entirety,
as I cry internally thinking I've lost my sanity.
telling myself to calm down
But how can I calm down when the world around me
is spinning out of control.
This is the one that holds me, hostage.
inside of my house, inside of my head.
Where did this come from?
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of state.


Each night memories sweep me up in his arms.
Dips me in the kitchen
Where we were most
In the small glow of the stove light
Memories have this tragic way
of making the moon feel like the perfect company.


“Just breath, your breath will relax you”
But my mind can only count reasons to hold it.
So, I go for walks
but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons
held in strong arms and long backs.
They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells,
Reminding me I am sleepwalking through life
on an ocean of happiness
that I cannot hold myself down in.


The loss of a loved one can teach you.
how to turn the anger into numbness.
Emotions?
Do you feel them?
Numb and frozen,
Yet it dimly sparkles like a dying gem.
So, when I tell you I don’t know how I am.
I mean, I’ve been talking to you.
With no idea what my brain is telling me.


“Happy can be a decision”
But my happiness is occasionally
as hollow as my soul
which my baggage resides in.
No,
my happiness may be obtained by climbing the tallest mountain
though its weight may inevitably crush me.