i. i'm not afraid
of falling; landing face down
and scraping my face on cement
or falling down and tasting mud
and having to crawl, crawl, until i find
a way back up.

i'm just afraid
that i'll never fly.


ii. sometimes i worry
about 'what if i break?' and
'what if no one can put me back
together?' and 'what if
there's no fixing broken people?'

and then i worry
about the
'what if i'm already broken?'
and it scares me.
it scares me.


iii. sometimes, i'll look
inside myself. sometimes, i never
see anything. and i want to grab a shovel
and scrape, scrape, scrape at
the top layers and maybe there's something
underneath, maybe it's not
hollow inside, but i'm so afraid
that it might be. that maybe
i'm just
empty.


iv. the walls of my mind are dark,
lined with sorrows and i lose myself
in my thoughts. i'm lost within
myself and maybe there's no way
out. [i've never been good
with directions, you know.] i'm trapped,
i think. this thought leaves me
exhausted, at the bottom of a hole
with no will to get out.

i'm tired. i'm so
tired. and i worry that i'll be stuck
tired, forever.


v. i can hear them crying.
i can hear the screams and
the thunder is crashing, violently, and
i'm shaking and i'm clawing and ripping
at my covers, because i want out
but it's cold out there and i'm shaking
and i can hear them crying.

and i only want them to go away.
just go away.

go away.