One Day Last Year (Giving it Back to Me)

I walk into work dreading to be seen. It feels like immediately everyone is focused on me. “What’s going on with Mr. Teddy?”

Each night I battle a hundred years of sorrow and birth past the narrow and harrowing schemes. I rise. I suit up. I perform my superhero routine. I try to lay down the night but it stays. Tilting on my shoulders just above my tear stains. And so I drive-often forgetting what timeline I am in. Bracing for impact, praying for a win. The night was long. The years have been longer. And I wonder how long today will be.

I have alchemized endlessly. I no longer have any softness to offer the world. So I cocoon into my own being. And I wish everyone would just stop talking. Gawking. Walking about me dubiously. My masks have been trashed so I’m still getting used to the feeling. Every encounter, every Brave attempt to be honest. I close that door and I crash out. AuDHD? Am I burnt out? I just want to live in deeper breaths. I want ease. But the years have grown heavy on me.

No softness left to give to the world. I must give it all back to me.