Sorrow
heartache
soul tears
heart break
ever
with me
will not
leave me
There is
for this
no balm
release
No one
to save
me from
this grave
of pain
buried
so deep
ne’er freed
silence
coldness
torture
darkness
quiet
sobbing
body
shaking
comfort
is none
for such
a one
as I
one as
hopeless
who has
no place
for home
ever
alone
Background:
The date this poem is recorded is near the end of my 9th grade year. I was struggling as I went through high school - I was in a very challenging academic program, struggling with one of the worst bullies (my own inner voice), having thoughts about sickness and death more frequently and more intensely (to the point that I began having panic attacks), and trying to figure out why making and keeping friends felt so difficult.
I don’t know how many times I started to make a friend (a process that, to me, felt like it took agonizingly long compared to almost everyone else), and then they would drop out of our program. (To illustrate how people were dropping like flies and going back to their regularly-zoned high schools, my 9th grade class started with around 120 people in it and the group of us at graduation was around 60.)
Though I don’t remember exactly when, I began frequently isolating myself sometime early on in high school. Not constantly, but often enough that it could be labeled a pattern or a habit. I often actively tried to sit alone at lunch, and usually felt a quiet, simmering anger if someone, especially a guy, tried to sit with or near me. Me spending time with classmates outside of school or school-related activities was exceptionally rare, and in those exceptions usually with a friend in my class who I had met all the way back in middle school.
I had acquaintances, people that I liked well enough and who seemed to not hate me, but in general, I typically found interacting confusing, anxiety-inducing, frustrating, or exhausting, and often all four. I felt like there was something majorly wrong with me, and eventually that turned to an inner monologue that was telling me that I didn’t deserve friends, I was stupid and boring, what was the point of anything, etc. You know, really uplifting stuff.
Whatever specifically triggered this poem, “Phantom,” was probably somehow connected to alllllll of that. I remember each line, only two syllables each, feeling like a heartbeat as I wrote it. It’s wild how self-hatred can make you feel like there’s a burning hole in your chest where your heart should be, to the point that you feel just as much dead as alive. And it’s horribly sad to feel the need to force yourself to complete copious amounts of rigorous work when you feel like literally everything you do is meaningless.
Praise God, that wasn’t and isn’t the end of the story. If there are echoes of any of this in your life, I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry your mind lies to you sometimes. I’m sorry the world and our own hearts aren’t always patient or kind toward suffering. I’m sorry that the system we live in so often puts the output of a person before the condition of their soul.
When I had no strength to resist those things, God fought for me, and gave me parents who fought for me, against myself. I don’t know who you have in your life - even if it is literally no one, I believe in the God who wants to be there for you when no one else, not even you, will.
He takes phantoms and gives them substance again.
I pray that for you.
Wishing you goodness without end,
Jess