The Storm

(I'm ready)

Don't have a diary entry per day of the lockdown
Won't remember the point I got dishevelled and unsound
Can't think about the After, the Later, or the Normal
That allegedly comes when the storm clouds are over
Cast and dissipating I can feel my lips shaking
In the gales of my breath
Testing speeds of exhaling
I inhale
I'm exhaling
I'm in hell
I'm ex-Eilidh

Lost myself, so I cope
Pump my lungs full of smoke
What a joke that I have to myself
With the hope of a note slipped into my chest
With a word or a vibe or a moment or a line
I need it, urgent
Affection urgently
In glass, I'll be here waiting

I can't take this silence
I get violent quickly
With myself, and the walls, and whatever would break me
The floor is perfectly cold but a fist through the door
That would probably hold
Is my target
Sleeves rolled and restrained
Open hands gravitating towards
I won't miss it
I'll strike with the side of my wrist to the bone
It'll echo through my fingers
And bounce off the wood, understood to be lazily aiming for my temples

You know where to hit when the storm wouldn't it where you placed it
Always missing the mark, I lost patience
Why won't it sit where I placed it?
Why won't it sit where I placed it?
Why won't it sit where I placed it?

I place it to the back of my brain
I'm couch bound today
I can't face another doorways lined with sayings
For a tempting pain
It looks the same as before when I knocked on wood
I used to call it self-harm, but a dunt to the arm, doesn't count
Right. Right?
And if I hit my head I'm just clearing cob-webs that make today feel like a fight.
I know I'm walking on thin ice
Don't always know when to stop when the fists take flight
But it's just a lay-by tonight,
I'll let you know when I'm not alright

You know where to hit when the storm wouldn't sit where you place it
Always missing the mark, I lost patience
Why won't it sit where I placed it?
Why won't it sit where I placed it?

I commit to the TV
Put my focus on movies
Through screen as a means of blinding
The screams rage forth and carry out their course
Of loneliness, cementing
I'll take another 6 hours of losing sleep
To the jay in my hand, I'll always keep
Relighting and fighting an urge to creep
On those old thoughts that start to seep, deep
Into the playground I go with my inner child moving desperate and slow
Pick through the thickets and the missteps on sticks
That creak from the weight
Of their tiny feet
I was slow to react to the fact that the world had gone tits up
And it took no time for the bars and cafe's and windows to shut
Down, I stood in an empty town saying
What the fuck
This really sucks
My cup overfloweth and I really shoulda known
this human would be out of luck
On my phone too much
Social media a crutch for the need to be seen and heard and such
While still inhaling and ignoring the burn of creeping acid reflux
I'm forgetting lunch and dinner and the other one
The sun comes up, but you know what
I'm already done
I'm sick cause I'm hungry and
I'm sick cause I'm smoking and
I'm sick cause I'm sleepy and
I'm sick cause someone's triggering
My PTSD, it's surging and
I'm sick of my emotions causing my head to swell
And my grinding jaw muscles to tense
From a storm that didn't listen and began to grow incensed
I meant to free it sooner but the weathers looking darker
And this just might be safer

I had to know when to quit when the storm didn't sit where I placed it
Never keeping it in, I found patience
It didn't sit where I placed it
A storm doesn't sit where you place it
I got gracious, for feeling at all in isolation
Only pockets of dissociation
Don't have to chase a storm down every second
It's a learning process
A storm won't quit if I chase it
But if I slow down then I got this
At least I'm not numb yet, I can take this
For a limited time, I can take this
Until I just can't
I can take this
A storm doesn't quit if you chase it

A storm doesn't quit if you chase it