Unnamed

I have insecurities, I can’t help it.

They creep and burrow into my brain like rodents

Then they pop up like whack-a-moles

Only I don’t have a hammer to whack them away;

They just appear and then they remain there

A vicious tease and annoyance.

They forced me into a corner of self-doubt and low esteem.

In this corner, the darkness closed in around me:

It was attracted to the negative ions I had exuded

In my solution of suppressive depression

And the salt bridge formed by my overwhelming tears.

How’s that for the perceived lack of chemistry

Especially when it had come to others?

Eventually I found the surrounding darkness had become comforting

It had welcomed me when it seemed no one else would:

I could be left alone there and have no one question me.

I thought I enjoyed my solitude.

She’s hidden herself from all those around her

And nobody’s found her

Nobody’s even tried.

She remains in the dark because nobody’s saved her,

Nor will they ever;

She is the one they have chosen to forget:

To leave without regret.

She’s left in the dark;

She feels without purpose,

She feels worthless.

She is alone.

In the blackness,

She’s completely defenseless

To her thoughts and her emotions,

Her tears formed an ocean.

The ocean surrounded her;

The ocean drowned her;

Then finally she died

Because all who have claimed to love her had left her behind.

Only when I couldn’t take the stress anymore did I go off;

I was a ticking time bomb.

Stress was my biological trigger,

It flowed through my veins waiting for its signal

In its unforeseeable detonation

I blundered ahead into the mountain of books.

I thought I could handle all that had come with the aspirations I had allotted myself.

Then I noticed that I could see myself, alone and weak:

Unable to succeed at anything.

Her thoughts tore into her,

They all saw the “reality” so they concurred:

They saw a weakling girl with scraggly arms

who had no strength to climb up the mountain, she had no zeal.

Nobody saw her because she lacked an aesthetic appeal,

Her “lacks” automatically made you see that she

Could never be anything she wished she could amount to be.

She didn’t have confidence in herself so nobody else ever could

And she never believed that someday someone would.

When somebody finally recognized and loved her

She found the strength she needed to conquer

Everything except the darkness

That hounded her with her state of being worthless.

She tried her hardest to push her way out

But she could not overcome the seething doubt.

I took time away, I just needed to breathe

This only worsened the situation though.

Like a spark thrown into a room full of gas,

Everything blew back in my face and I had no idea what to do.

I cried every night and couldn’t answer simple questions.

I holed myself away in my room and did nothing but despair

In my eternal gloom. But then a light was shed

And it’s lead me to be who I am today

Even though the feeling still comes back to haunt me

I have a release which is what I needed to begin with,

Something to ride me through my fall and lessen the impact it had on my surroundings.

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This piece shows creativity in that I haven't written a poem before where I've jumped from one perspective to another, both being the speaker and the outsider looking in on the speaker is quite interesting. I find it engaging in that it is disorienting to read the back and forth of the two perspectives which is what I was aiming for. I wanted the reader to be put in a place where they felt confused and needed to go back and run back through what they read in order to better grasp my tone and the overall feelings behind the poem. This shows growth in that I'm using the two separate perspectives to aid the underlying meaning and tone of the piece.