For many years, I lived in a cloud of darkness. Thankfully, those years are far behind me and I can now speak of them without sadness. In my upcoming book “Living on Ice“, I write of my journey through those years – overcoming personal pain and rising above the ashes. This is a draft chapter from the middle of the book.

I have a growing sense of not being “enough”.

I don’t know how to search far and wide for “why”…. my mind has short-circuited

Maybe I could do better

-be better at everything

-try to be perfect

but I never seem to quite make it

Maybes and maybes….but no answers

And I slowly begin to unravel

It begins with tears after dropping the children at school

It continues with tears as sleep mercifully comes to the rescue

It makes itself known in the fire that has left my eyes

My unravelling is complete when the world drains of colour and everything looks back at me in shades of grey.

It’s the numbness of nerve- endings

It’s the deep shame of being ‘defective’

It’s the realisation that the darkness which embraces me has no foot-holds on its slippery wall

My smile is my only armour

It hides everything

My weakness is met with strong protestations that border on volcanic anger

And now I detest myself even more.

© Vivian Zems

Poets United