A restlessness in my chest like a caged bird. I can feel its wings beating against the bars of my ribcage. So many thoughts filling my mind, scratching to get out. They are meaningless, weightless like feathers, but still there.

Days like this, I don’t know what to do with myself.
All day – and all night.
I wander the halls along the walls and under my breath
I say to myself,
I need fuel – to take flight

My mother complains I don’t smile anymore. “You weren’t always like this,” she says. And as much as I hate to admit it, she’s right.

Is that why they call me a sullen girl – sullen girl.
They don’t know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea.
But he washed me ashore and he took my pearl -
And left an empty shell of me.

A restlessness in my chest like a caged bird. How do I go about releasing him from my thoughts? How do I answer my mother’s question and make her see that I’m all right, that it’s all right?

And there’s too much going on.
But it’s calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion…