A Garden on Fire

Overflowing with emotions I can't express

Letting it build up

Letting it press

Hard against the walls I've built up

They were never to protect me

They were to give up

Give up on the thought that

I am enough

That I can just be loved

I don't have to be deserving enough

Because to say I deserve love

Means I still have to earn

Someone or something still has to find me worthy of it

I am enough all on my own

But my heart echoes the pain of those who left me all alone

So now I'm stuck in my head

With the voice that repeats my pain

Like a record that instead of soothing my soul

Only plays my sorrow

My grief

Playing all my past choices and mistakes on repeat

Every beat is a knife that pierces my heart slowly

As all my feelings leak out with every breath

A painful, quiet ache

That sits heavy on my chest

For the days that getting out of bed is all that I have left

For the times that eating is battling my will to live

And the time that taking that shower is my desperate need for warmth

For the way my mind goes to war within itself

I'm stuck in the in-between

Learning and unlearning what it means to be free

Free from all the pain that was never mine

All the love that came at a price

All the memories that feel like a vice grip

All the scars that show what I put up with

All the self-inflicted wounds that no one can see

That was just me trying to prove I am worthy

For all the things that no one can see

I want not only to be loved but to be seen

Seen for all the good

As I tried to bury all the bad

In the garden I keep setting on fire

Because I know the growth would be bad

All the anger I never allowed myself to show

All the tears I pour into a broken cup expecting it to grow

For all the years on this earth have led me to see

There's so much more to love than the eyes can ever see

Than the mind can comprehend

Than the heart could ever feel

As I ask myself daily if it's even real