*** This is a poem that recycles bits and pieces of previous poems ('Happy Poem II', 'Bullet List', 'Survival' and 'Blank, Broken and Beautiful') to create a piece that's meant for slam poetry. ***
All my life I’ve tried so hard to become a happy poem.
But nobody knows what it takes
to pull the pencil away from your wrists.
To stop tainting your skin with ‘I hate you’s’
despite the dashing university titles
and the pillow of self-help books
cushioning your broken brain.
In the mornings, you say you’ll run along.
But then you wipe the sleepdust off your face
and stay, perfectly disabled in your queen-sized bed.
All alone.
Your jogging pants lie on the couch
like a lazy apology, heart shrinks
as you watch the world speeding away from you.
Your resume is a list of panic attacks
and sleepless nights. After seven years,
you finally got your master’s degree
in the science of self-hatred.
Because all your essays felt like sob stories,
and your friends became tired of proofreading them.
But nobody knows how hard you tried to be a happy poem.
Every morning, mindfulness emerged from your mailbox:
Breathe in… breathe out…
Drowning the demons in digital ocean sounds.
Your life is a playlist of self-regulation.
Every step outside, swayed with salsa songs,
every run raged with rock ‘n roll.
You were supposed to stay alive.
Every evening, your calendar
looked like a colour-coded candybar;
broke down your days in bite-sized sugar rushes
to make sure you’d happily hop around.
But you are not a happy poem.
You are a bullet list, that’s trying to kill itself
one task at a time. One pill at a time.
One toxic habit at a time.
Until, one day, the poison seeped out
and killed everyone around you.
Now nobody wants to touch you
because you’re full of death.
Congratulations, you succeeded,
you succeeded in your career of self-destruction.
But after destruction comes rebirth.
A clean slate.
You could finally be yourself.
Your future is a blank paper
nestling inside a fortune cookie.
You’re asking strangers to break you
and explore your invisible ink.
You’re so full of metaphors, that maybe,
maybe you could be a beautiful poem after all.
So you swap the you’s around for I’s,
You start to take responsibility.
You say:
I am a whitespace because I've smashed
my body into pieces, tracing each edge
to find the perfect storyline.
You say:
My face is not what it used to be:
solid like a warrior, but riddled
with unsolved crimes against myself.
Instead, it is a sculpture
that's held by fingerprints
of poets and painters.
I am a work of art
because I was once broken.
I know better than anybody else
how to shape a happy poem
because the most perfect rhymes
are found through feelings.
And I am full of feelings,
I will overflow like an oasis
and grow ivy around my spine to keep myself upright.
I will plant sweet words in your garden
because I know what it’s like to feel like
you were born in rotten soil, unable to grow.
I will be there for you, untangle your thorns
and braid daisies around your wrist.
You won’t see I’m hurting
because my skin is glazed with armour
and blood is no stranger to me.
