The Blackness That Lives Inside My Chest

Foreword / Introduction

Hey everyone, it’s been pretty quiet here with summer break going on. I’ll try to share more soon. I don’t want to say much about this next poem, just a heads-up that it might be hard to read if you’ve dealt with depression or suicidal thoughts, as I have.

Poem: The Blackness That Lives Inside My Chest [free-verse, elegy, confessional]

There’s this creature that lives somewhere deep beneath my ribs where my heart should be beating normally,
but instead it’s wrapped around something cold and heavy like a stone someone threw into dark water.
And every morning when I try to breathe properly, it reminds me that it’s still there waiting patiently,
like a shadow that follows me everywhere I go even when there’s no sun to cast it on the ground,
making everything feel empty and hollow like an old house where nobody lives anymore but the ghosts remain.
And I wonder if this is what drowning feels like when you’re still walking around pretending to be alive.

The weight of existing feels like carrying invisible chains wrapped around my ankles and my wrists,
dragging me down into some place where the air tastes like metal and the silence screams louder than voices.
Where thoughts become razor blades cutting through whatever hope I might have stored up for tomorrow,
and I find myself thinking about what peace would feel like if I could just stop fighting this war inside.
About how quiet everything would be if I could finally put down these weapons I never asked to carry,
like laying my head down on cool grass and never having to lift it up again to face another day.

Sometimes I imagine my sadness as an ocean that keeps rising higher no matter how fast I try to swim,
pulling me under with currents stronger than anything my tired arms could ever hope to fight against.
And I think about what it would be like to just stop swimming and let the water fill up my lungs,
to become part of something bigger than this small broken thing that I call myself most days.
Where the pressure would squeeze out all the hurt and the fear until there’s nothing left but silence,
like disappearing into the blue where nobody expects you to smile or pretend everything is all right anymore.

The mirror shows me a face that belongs to someone I used to know before the darkness moved in,
but now there’s something different behind my eyes like a light that’s slowly burning out despite my efforts.
And I practise expressions that look like happiness while inside I’m calculating the distance between pain and peace,
wondering if anyone would really miss the person I used to be or just the version I pretend to be.
Because sometimes love feels like another burden when you know you’re going to disappoint everyone eventually,
like being responsible for other people’s hearts when you can barely keep your own from breaking completely.

The thoughts that visit me in the quiet hours whisper about endings and about rest from this exhaustion,
about how much easier it would be for everyone if they didn’t have to worry about me falling apart.
And they paint pictures of a world where my absence would be like removing a splinter from someone’s finger,
small and sharp and painful until it’s gone and then everything feels better almost immediately afterwards.
Where the people who say they love me could finally stop tiptoeing around my broken pieces on the floor,
like I’m doing them a favour by taking away their need to be careful with their words around me.

Each day feels heavier than the last one, and I’m running out of reasons to keep carrying this weight.
The voice that used to tell me things might get better has gone quiet and left me alone with the darkness.
And I’m starting to understand that some people just aren’t meant to stick around for very long,
that maybe I was always supposed to be temporary like a candle that burns bright for a moment then goes out.
While everyone else gets to be permanent fixtures in a world that never really had space for me anyway,
and perhaps it’s time to stop pretending that I belong here when everything inside me says I don’t.