A Letter To My Self Poem by Lotty Banjo

Letters to Myself

by Lotty Banjo

My head feels pinned up by metal rods—
bolted to my eyes,
to my grin,
to the smile I wear.
Is any of it real?
I sit and ponder.

I hurt for you—
in a way I feel,
in a way I see,
in a way I breathe.
The ache—
it hurts.
Unbearable.
Yet I live with it.

The music cuts off,
and the silence swells—
a pressure in my chest
ready to rupture
into deathly screams.

Weights hang on me,
pull me down.
My smile twists and tugs,
then folds into a frown.
A tug-of-war with emotions.
Am I going to drown?

I want to hurt so bad—
I want to feel.
But the pain
has become a silence.
A hum.
A ghost I carry.

A puppet in my head,
tugged by invisible hands.
The strength beneath my skin—
it cracks.
The flesh breathes
in sharp unison.

I miss you, Lotty—
in every cut,
in every slice.
The childhood I think of
is so lost,
so far.

Right now,
the monster's only biting—
tasting what it's about to devour.
I sit and sink
into the belly of the beast.

Is being eaten
better than choosing the way out yourself?
A quick slice of the wrists?
A tie around the neck?

Or maybe I deserve it.
To sit in sadness
every summer,
every winter.
To remember what I did,
to carry guilt like it's stitched
into the lining of my skin.

I write to you,
hoping you'll come back.
Not you—
but your innocence.
The soft glue I press
into the cracks of my mind.

It holds me for a while.
Until I break again.

And when I do,
the real hurt shines through—
not in tears,
not in anger,
but blood.
My blood.
It seeps.
Pours.
Pools.

I miss you, Innocence.
I miss you, Love.

Come back to me.
Heal me.
Show me what I was.
Show me what it's like to love.
To feel whole again.

But the monster is clever.
It waits.
Creeps.
Preys.
And when it attacks,
my mind becomes the victim.
It splits.

Still—
even with the monster at my back,
I am empathy.
I am whole.
A part of me remembers.

I wish I could cry,
but my tears won't come.
No matter how deep the wound,
no blood appears.

I want to cut.
I want to hurt.
But I mustn't.
Because to hurt
is to be weak.
So I choose
to feel nothing.

I miss you, Lotty.
I miss
who I once was.