An Ode to an Old Friend

 Hello! 

This is a poem I've never shared publicly before but I really like it! It's a little bit longer and I don't necassarily think it works as spoken word but I'm proud of it all the same. 

It's about my struggles with anxiety and panic attacks that I had as a teenager and how overcoming them is a super long and ongoing process, but I'm getting there. 

Hope you enjoy! 

“Hello old friend”

She calls out to the thing in the dark.

“It’s been a long time since I saw you last”

The thing, as usual, does not respond.

But that’s okay. She’s used to doing all the talking anyway.

“How have you been?

I’ve been doing much better without you here

But I guess that’s to be expected”

The thing in the dark nods knowingly towards her shaking hands and tapping feet

She moves over on the bathroom floor and pats the space next to her

“Why don’t you sit a while?

“I think you and I are going to be here for a long time tonight

We might as well be comfortable”

 

She would always remember the first time the thing in the dark came to call

This terrifying darkness that scooped her up so suddenly and spun her round and made her legs turn to jelly and her lungs feel just a little bit too small

Running out of classrooms before peers could see the tears running down her face became a routine, she never planned for

By the time the thing in the dark got to its twentieth visit she’d spent so much time sitting on the floor in her school’s bathroom stalls that she had the graffiti on the door memorised

Her fear of the thing in the dark felt like weights in her pockets

Like those nightmares where something’s chasing you, but your legs have stopped working and you can’t stand up

As she looked at the thing in the dark from the floor of the bathroom stall for the thirtieth time

She wondered why nightmares couldn’t’ve just stayed as nightmares

The weights in her pockets turned to fists

“Why me?” she asked. “Why not them?”

“Why do you make me hide on the floor of this bathroom stall while they’re out there

Laughing?”

The thing in the dark just looked at her with sadness in its heart, and pointed a long, crooked finger at the graffiti on the toilet door

 

The darkness visited a lot back then

Her grades began to slip as her silent visitor stuck around for longer and longer each time

And every day, getting up off of the floor of the bathroom stall felt more like running out of the trench and into open fire

Each day, to keep the thing in the dark at bay, she read the graffiti on the toilet door

Amongst all the gossip of relationships and abuse of teachers, were other things

About the loneliness of school-life

And the fear of going home

And the hatred of a society that makes girls become women far too quick

One message stood out in bright red ink

“maybe I’m just broken”

 

The thing in the dark soon stopped visiting her on the floor of the bathroom stall with the graffitied door and started to look from the corner at the same blue patterned bedsheets and unwashed hair.

A long time went by.

The thing in the dark began to worry

Or worry as much as the darkness can

But one day, the thing in the dark returned to new white bedsheets and just washed curls

The thing in the dark started to scoop her up but

She stood tall with her shoulders back

She looked the thing in the dark right into where its eyes should have been and proclaimed 

“I am not afraid of the dark anymore”

Then, for the first time, the thing in the dark smiled and reached out a hand.

And as they stood in the dark holding hands

The thing kissed them lightly before floating away to wherever things in the dark live when they’re not too busy scooping people up and spinning around them round and making their legs feel like jelly and their lungs feel just a little bit too small

 

It took a few more days

But she finally went back to the bathroom stall

Except this time, she didn’t sit on the floor

She stood up tall with her shoulders back and added her own graffiti to the toilet door

“broken things can always be put back together again”

 

“So you see, we’ve been through a lot together, old friend”

She smiles at the thing in dark that sits next to her on this new bathroom floor

“But I think I must be getting back now”

The thing in the dark rises with her from the ground

“Goodbye old friend

I’ll see you again soon I’m sure”

She waves as the thing in the dark nods knowingly and drifts away

A new friend knocks on the bathroom door

“you alright in there? I miss you”

She takes a deep breath

Smiles at her reflection

And reminds herself of what she knows to be true

That the thing in the dark will, sometimes, continue to scoop her up and spin her round and make her legs feel like jelly and her lungs feel just a little bit too small

But, given the chance

Broken things can always be put back together again

Cause you see

Although she still has lots more healing to do

The dark isn’t all that scary when you sit with it a while

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