Chapter 1
She counts her breaths, One...Two…Three.
the notes, the words she tried to keep,
all tangle now in thoughts too deep.
She deeply fears the weight of crowds,
She fears that she looks like a clown.
But its not the people really, just their eyes.
But she has no idea why.
—
Her hands tremble into a clenched fist,
Knows how to deal with this,
Its a chase away from all the fears
that she’s been feeling through the years,
the sobbing nights, the scarred skin,
the breaths she swallowed that
her lungs seemed to miss.
—
She’s scared.
Not because this chase isn’t right,
But scared she’s lost the will to fight.
Scared that the voice she knows is there
will die the moment she declares:
“im alright.”
But what if that girl does not arrive?
What if the voice, it cracks and dies?
What if they see her as a loose thread,
As someone they have to mend.
—
What if the mask she’s held in place
topples over and they see her face,
And they all see what she’s concealed
that she’s not brave, not even barely healed.
That she’s not gifted, just obsessed
with proving she’s not like the rest
with proving pain has made her strong,
when really, shes like the rest of them all.
—
They don’t know how she starts her days
fighting off the exhausted haze
of nights where blades and bottled fears
spoke louder than the love she hears.
They don’t know why she stares so long
into the mirror, feeling wrong.
not ugly, not pretty, not skinny nor fat.
no, not quite exactly that.
—
But like her soul won’t fit her skin
Like the lost future inside her eyes has finally dimmed.
like the fire inside her chest that doesn’t exactly burn,
fires her mind that says “she will never learn”
—
They don’t know all the times she’s said,
“I’d trade it all to rest instead.”
Not sleep, not dreams, no, something more:
to not exist, to not be sore.
—
Maybe there is a way,
maybe there is an end.
—
But well
for now, somehow,
she’s standing here.
Feet on the floor, despite the fear.
Lungs that ache but still inhale,
a voice that might crack, But might prevail.
—
And well isn’t that kind of a fight?
To show up broken, chasing light?
To say, “I don’t know who I am,
but I am here, I give a damn.
Not because I know I’ll win
but just because I’ve held too much in
and maybe now, or some time around
I’ll let the fear come out somehow.”
Let them hear the truth in song:
that she’s been quiet for far too long.
That yes, she’s scared she’ll lose control,
but still, she wants to feel whole.
—
She doesn’t know what lies ahead.
Her past still whispers, full of dread.
But if she stands here, takes her cue
then maybe, just maybe, she’ll make it through.
And though the fear still claws her chest,
She grabs a microphone with shaky hands.
She discovers a newer, better chase.
She puts a smile in her face,
And she sings with her all and tries her best
Well, because she must, no less.
—
Not for them.
Not for fame.
Not to be great or stake a claim.
But to prove to the girl inside
the one who nearly always hides
that even trembling, scared and rough
she is still,
more
than
enough.
