Aurora Borealis

This post contains use of writing as a metaphor for self-harm, and multiple references to scars. This is due to the fact that the author used to use writing as a way of coping with the urge to do so.

Again, this poem is mostly metaphorical, but please do not read this if it will bother you in any way.

I am over a year clean from self-harm. Healing is possible.

i lay in bed,

and i try to think of something poetic

anything, really,

because there is a poem in my soul

chained to the bottom of my chest,

a weight dragging me down and creating a pit in me.

tears are streaming from my eyes yet again

and under these leds they seem to stain my cheeks the colors of the northern lights,

leading something in me to scream out that something is wrong,

something has changed,

i’ve changed and i need to get it down on paper

prove it’s simple metamorphosis

but i cannot do that. 

i need to write,

always need to write,

need something to look back on when things change,

when i change;

i need to write,

but i cannot.

so i sit here and try to think of anything,

but all i think of is your face the last time i saw you

and all i can find are these starry tears,

and the words “i am sorry,”

sorry i can’t help you,

sorry for the person i once was,

the person i am now,

for who i continue to be,

sorry to go about my day laughing and smiling,

evolving, knowing

you still struggle to make it through each hour, each minute, each second,

knowing that when i lay in bed and cry over you

and make myself sick with worry

it doesn’t do shit

and i cannot do shit.

and i’m sorry that i send you my condolences

rehearsed like a script

reheated like the leftovers i ate for lunch

really, it’s not that appetizing anymore

and it makes me nauseous, so i write

about how appalling indeed it is that i have the audacity to make my life better

to the point where i struggle to think of metaphors

when words once flowed out of me like blood from a wound,

but it’s long-closed now.

i need to not let this close,

i need to write,

because why should i heal

when you are left behind?

we were ride-or-dies

and as we looked out over the lights of the garden

you said it again,

and i watched the breath that carried your words crystallize in the cold,

cementing your words to reality.

but if it were true, i would not carry this guilt.

either we’d both be miserable

or we’d both heal. 

so i write because i refuse to leave you behind,

because i’m scared that one day you’ll look at me

and not recognize me anymore,

that there’ll be nothing left to show of us,

that you’ll drift away and i’ll be alone again,

back at square one,

and you’ll be 

gone

for good. 

i write because it is a way of plunging that knife in my chest once more,

ripping open old wounds so that i may stitch them back together with flower stems and barbed wire,

make the pain i ignore beautiful

feel it deeply,

and cry with you,

not for you,

not about you. 

i write so that when you see that my hair is now red and not brown,

and i didn’t even tell you,

you’ll know it’s stained with blood,

drawn from each of the sorrowful stories we shared. 

so that one day when you step 

out 

of my car for the final time

and see me;

see that the scars my poems left are fully healed,

you’ll still see the imprints laid out in stardust,

the same stardust you used to call me,

and know in your heart that despite it all,

i’m still the person you once loved. 

but for now i cannot write,

not beautifully, at least,

so i write the words “i’m sorry,”

my last words,

and close my eyes to the aurora borealis.

• Augustana College
• college
• mental health