Out of sight

Mental health is crazy amiright. Though things are getting better, I still struggle with it fairly regularly. Here's a small bit of rhyming chat about isolation.

I isolate myself, in this room in this chair, out of choice.

Out of sight out of mind.

Yet somehow you still swan around in there, in each corner, and I can’t help but stare.

I try to escape behind doors and walls, but in still you pour, vivid and overpowering.

I shrink back in fright, overwhelmed by the blight that comes with endless introspection.

‘Find a small place and have the grace to not force your thoughts upon others’ I had decided.

But now, by my own mind, I am smothered.

The others are no longer the issue, the beast is in me, living rent free, and it's got me by the…

lungs. It sits on my chest as I suffocate, staring at the walls I thought I needed.

Every movement is pushing a giant boulder up a mountain. Every second of rest is watching it

fall down again. Rinse, repeat, defeat.

I look out the window and the birds are singing. Chitter chattering on the line, then moving together in seamless murmurations when the feeling takes them.

What a far cry from my reality. I isolated to escape, but imprisoned myself with the worst cell mate.

What are the options left now for me. Do I wither and die, or go out and be? A sliver of hope gropes around in the darkness. I gaze at my boots.

The tangling roots of my own thoughts try to drag me back down,

so I jump up,

with seconds to spare, barely escaping the cavernous lair.

Torturous tangents transport me beyond these walls everyday, so I may as well walk through my own front gate, I speculate.

The earth is so solid under my feet, a street I have not seen for over a week. The blush of the cold on my cheeks catches my breath.

My feet know where to go and I let them take me.

I climb on the train. I hear the familiar call of the wild. Running away from you. me. you. me. Mind over matter, except swap the former for the latter.

The countryside streaks by outside, a blur of greens, greys and gold. I feel bold. The wind howls and the rain trickles, down the window. Tadpoles, chasing after one another.

Outside, the vast space awaits and I breathe it in. My lips are cold and wet from the light mist. My fingertips tingle with the cold and turn slightly, pleasantly, numb. The air is fresh and green, daylight peeks through the clouds, fringed horses graze and gaze at me with benevolent indifference.

I run my fingers through wet moss, across rough bark, as I climb higher and higher, crunching my way upwards. My breath is ragged and my heart’s all warm in my chest.

I remember I am just an ant in a massive world, here for a tiny second to give life a go.

Nature carries on regardless of my thoughts at night, regardless of my self made plight, regardless of the lack of light.

My hair is blown in ragged knots as I stand atop and gaze across the endless peaks.

They seem to me like giant’s feet, each hill the toe of a sleeping beast.