Waiting Game Poem by V. T. Bullock

So this isn't so much of a poem but I guess a metaphore...

Do you ever feel all alone? Like no one understands? Isolated, you don’t fit in, left out, and no one even notices. Even after you have gathered the courage to say something, mustered up the strength to look it in the eye, and say this isn’t right, it continues. The pain just gathers up inside, bigger and bigger, darker and darker, more pain, more hate.

Then, every now and then, it becomes too much, and just takes over, like an unattended continuous stream of water into a bath. Eventually it will over flow and cause disaster, wreaking havoc where ever it may go, destroying everything that it touches. Going through the floor, under the door, through the walls, no longer contained in the room it began in, no longer in the tub it was meant to stay in forever. Reaching every room, spreading from one to the other, reaching corners that you didn’t even know existed. That’s what this pain and darkness inside is like. It starts off small, meant to stay in its small designated corner of my heart, never meant to grow, but it does. It breaks all the rules my mind has set for it. It travels from one corner to the next until my entire heart is consumed. Then when my heart can no longer contain it, it leaves, spreading to other parts of my body.

Maybe it’s a gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach or an endless headache in the unreachable depths of my brain. Then moving to my legs causing pain so as not to allow me to reach my comfort zone. Spreading to my tongue, no longer allowing me to speak the words that need to be spoken to release the darkness. Next into my ears so that I can no longer hear what needs to be herd, can no longer hear those soothing words, the ones that can temporarily disguise the pain. It spreads to my hands so that I can no longer reach out to those I need, the ones I love. It spreads to my better judgment, preventing me from making the proper decisions about life, friendship, love, simple everyday tasks.

Then through my eyes, in the form of water, but this water cannot be called tears, that seems too much of a common everyday word, it does not do this water justice. It pours out, a never ending flow, running down my cheeks, to my neck, onto my shirt. My hands are not strong enough, big enough to hold back this water fall. It just pours and pours until there is no water left, but there is plenty of darkness left, so it needs to move on. It spreads to my throat coming out in the beginning in the form of sobs, quiet ones; they then grow stronger and stronger. These sobs turn into screams, it needs to escape, so I yell and yell but it isn’t enough. It moves on to my lungs, and suffocates me; I can no longer breathe.

Then when I finally cave in, tell it, no, will it to take total and complete control of my body, do what it wants with me, it stops. It has done what it can for now, I have surrendered to it, it knows I will no longer fight it, so it returns to its small designated corner of my heart, ready for the next attack. The next trigger that will release it and feed it, allow it to grow. Maybe it will be a simple conversation with someone who has hurt me in the past, or knowing the person I love is leaving, or maybe it will be a memory that reappears in the form of a dream in the middle of the night. The trigger is unknown, and unpredictable, but it will come, and the darkness will spread again.

Some days I decide that today is the day, come out and take over my body. But it will not, that is much too convenient. It has to wait until I least expect it, a time when I should be happy, a time I am surrounded with family, friends, love, a time when I have relaxed and let my guard down. Now it is just a waiting game... Do I wait? Or do I end it now? If I did that I would no longer have to wait for the next attack, it would all be over. Is this the right decision? The question plagues me every single day.