In sleep
my time is stollen
Silence broken
by people
persisting
in their night moves
I’m awake before the sun has shed its heavy blanket.
The air around me vibrates with the call of technical bugs
humming, buzzing, beeping in the darkness
of the room
where I’m trying to hide.
Footsteps creep downstairs
as light slowly emerges through the clouds
demands
attention
validation
complaints
they all hit my ears before
my thoughts have had a chance to
awaken
Crunching
chewing
more talking
about inane topics
all before
I’ve had a chance
to experience
the sound of
silence
I am the complete opposite of introverted. I am the person who seeks the weak and edges them into comfort, and communication. I am so outgoing, and vivacious that I will talk to pretty much anyone from enemy, to stranger, to friend. My not so hidden secret though is that I THRIVE on absolute silence.
My mornings are sacred. The bites of time that I get to compose my thoughts while coffee courses through my soul are more important to me than sleep. The molecules of time provide me solitude, though rarer than the most precious stones, revive my existence and allow me to function in a world that grinds my spirit to dust.
When life demands too much of my time it shuts me into a coin purse. Each transaction of communication becomes a cost on my soul; I shut down. Exhaustion embeds itself in my skin like a fresh tattoo that I feel, but no one else can see. Raw, stinging, burning in pain, yet I appear more alive than ever. I keep up. I do. I act. I perform. I persist. Tenacity overtakes my need for rest as the two feelings battle like tigers within me.
Sleep. Stay silent. Rest. NO! I can’t. Function. Do more. Help. Try harder. I don’t have much of a choice. People around me have created their own dependencies on me. Some feel the need to breathe the air I exhale. I can’t stop them. Others believe my time belongs solely to them. I can’t share more than I already do. I take back. I retreat. They bite at my heels, begging, demanding for more blood than I can bleed, more time than I have to breathe, more of me than I know myself.
I don’t know how to become myself again. I don’t know how to find silence in the noise that engulfs me. I don’t know how to balance my world, and demands that the world puts on me. I try asking for peace, for silence, for time, but the people who drink my water before I can feel the refreshing coolness of it are relentless. Maybe they don’t realize how they make my thirst unquenchable? Maybe they don’t realize that they more they take from me, the less I have to share with them, but mostly, with myself? I wish there was a way to express my needs without feeling selfish. I wish there was a way for people to recognize that silence isn’t neglecting, it’s self-care, it’s self-respect, it’s self-preservation. Most of all, it’s essential to my well being.
Beautifully Broken 