“Most days, waking up is the hardest
But it is also when Poetry arrives
Stands patiently outside the shower,
Places its hand on the mirror
Wipes away the steam"
Sometimes, waking up is you being greeted by the all too familiar embrace of numbness. You find yourself surrounded by a whirlwind of never ending thoughts, the soft, yet persistent, hum of your surroundings reminding you that you are alive. There is a certain buzzing that you cannot quite shake off. It gets to the point where you cannot tell whether it is real or simply the fruit of your own imagination.
At first, it irked you. It drove you towards the edge. It tried you in the worst of possible ways. But now? It’s almost a friend of yours. A constant existence that reassures you, reminds you, that you are indeed alive.
You realize how much you are distancing yourself from everything, including your own experiences, when you find yourself writing like this. In a frenzy, short breathed, as if you just finished a race. Your mind tallies all the things you need to accomplish during your waking hours. You repeat them like a mantra, hoping, wishing, begging for them to ground you in reality.
Despite everything, you still think of your bed greeting you at the end of the day like an old friend. But you know, deep down, that no real relief comes out of sleep either.
It is but the unconscious equivalent of your constant numbness.
"And then there are days when
Sleeping is the hardest. The fight
Of muscle against world becomes
So constant that surrendering
to slumber doesn’t promise
Nearly enough relief"
India Trio - Sarah Kay
--Nahla, Student