Self-Bandaging Divergent Thoughts

By Ishita Ahuja UG23

All I felt was mundane numbness.

Pill after pill
Struggle and grief
Struggle and grief
Pill after pill
The cackle of tin foil
The gulp of water
The sigh of regret
Of getting sicker and sicker
The never-ending cycle that seems to last forever
Of taking in pills and hoping you get better

People say it’s easy,
“You’ve got to make your mind strong!”
But to you it’s like a rickety bridge
That just keeps falling apart.
Thoughts of anxiety rushing through your brain
Will you try, sweetheart, to be fine again?

And all that was left was anxious repression.

“Just give me a minute.”
I shiver in the bathroom stall.
Fingers quiver
Breathing heavy
Wheezy
Counting sheep couldn’t leave me more helpless
Deep breaths just leave me more empty

My eyes penetrate me
Knees give way
Why do I feel this way?

“Another minute”
My hands go numb
Fingers seem like someone else’s
Veins protrude
Worn out muscles tighten
Grip on the bathroom handle loosens
I fall into an eternal abyss
Heart pounding leading me to lie down
I now am not sure
If I’m alive
Or if I resemble a corpse more.

Mountains of self-doubt made me forget myself.

It’s time to move
Pack your bags
Leave your surroundings in peace
Will anyone really remember me?

The days have moved on pretty quickly
The final goodbyes are said so bleakly
The green trees wave goodbye for me
Will anyone really remember me?

Thousands of people I’ve met
So many of them might forget
The things I’ve said to the people I leave
Will anyone really remember me?

Nobody remembers those feelings I shared
The emotions that flared
The days I was scared

The places I loved
The reasons I cried
All they remember is the goodbye

All they remember is the goodbye.

But when all is lost, something to cling on to is easy to find.

Reality clashing in.
Choking you till you reach your limit.
Climbing upon your neck
Gripping your throat, not letting go.
Opening your eyes
To the rest of the world.
Making sure you hate the hardships you must endure
Until one day
A light
A flicker
Something so insignificant, yet so refined
Comes to light and you feel
You feel
You feel fine.

I found something. A pen. A paper. Thoughts.

Writing is my religion,
It’s my peace.

It’s the comfort I needed when I didn’t have me.
It’s the pain that throws life’s sorrows away.
Or seems to numb it down, And not just for
a little while,
But for the whole damn day.

Through the written word I endlessly write myself

Reflection and self-healing bound me.

I’ve always felt like something was wrong with me
I’ve always felt like my feelings were equivalent to a hurricane swirling around,
Ever-random, ever-changing
I’ve always felt like I have no control over situations
Or my reaction to them
Or myself

Oh, if only I could tell the past me
Tell the old me
The repressed me
The part of me I loathed and paid no heed to
That you,
You were the best part of me

Things I thought were wrong, we’re in fact most correct
My flaws turned out to be my strengths
My negatives were turned into rays of hope
Remnants of sadness turned into
Beauty
Hurt into productivity
Treacherous suppression
Into confidence, freedom, and action.

Breathe in the freedom
Breathe out the despair and the never-quite-rightness
Because only you can stop the hurting
Yourself.

Self-acceptance was and still is hard, but the road to it can only make survival easier.

Well
You
Killed
Me
Then
Saved
Me
When times are hard you say “I understood the problem, but I’m here to understand you”
Instead of a goodbye, you say “I have never been so fortunate and unfortunate at the same
time before”
While playing with my hair you say “bad days are like tangled hair, you need someone to
smoothen ’em out for you”
And then you smoothen ’em out for me.
Rainy days leave drops of stardust on your eyelashes.
Warm cups of cocoa leave chocolate mustaches
That you beckon for me to wipe away
You loved so easily that I nearly forgot you loved me
And your eyes, they remind me every day
What it is
To be
Me

This hate, it turns into light
The sadness to might
The pain to strength

And that’s when the revival begins.