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Kaitlyn Gillum Poem
some days, it feels like i’m drowning in air,
the kind of breath that scrapes your lungs raw,
and i wonder if i’ll ever remember how it felt
to be anything other than tired of existing.
i see people move through life like it’s easy,
like there’s a script i never learned,
and i’m a spectator in my own skin,
watching my hands go through motions
i don’t feel, saying words i barely hear.
they think they know me—
they don’t see the hollow inside,
the parts of me that feel unfinished,
the places where i keep my distance,
where i smile, nod, say the right things,
and none of it reaches the ache underneath.
there’s a darkness so sharp it’s nauseating,
a noise in my head like static, like screaming,
like everything inside wants to claw its way out,
and i am quiet, always quiet,
while the pain drowns me in silence.
i don’t know how to touch happiness anymore,
or even sorrow, not the real kind,
just this numb ache, this emptiness
where i should feel something, anything—
but it’s all lost, slipping through fingers
i barely believe are mine.
sometimes i wonder if i’m a person at all
or just a cracked shell pretending,
and it hurts, god, it hurts,
because i am so close to everyone
and yet a thousand miles from myself,
no warmth, no sympathy, no empathy,
just this empty performance
that i can’t remember how to stop.
and no one sees it—the way i’m slipping,
how existing feels like a weight i can’t carry,
how every day tastes a little more bitter,
how every hour feels just a little further
from where i thought life would be.
i am here but i’m not here,
a shadow with a voice, a ghost with hands,
and i wonder if anyone could ever
look past the mask long enough
to see the silence tearing me apart
from the inside out.
Copyright © Kaitlyn Gillum | Year Posted 2024
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Details |
Kaitlyn Gillum Poem
He thought he bought power—
the gilded frame, the sparkle,
the status he thought it would grant.
The auctioneer’s voice, smooth as oil,
whispered of treasures others could never touch.
A crown, a symbol of dominion—
but it was ruinous,
this deal he made.
He paid with gold and a hunger
he thought would be satisfied.
But now, in his grasp,
the weight of what he holds shatters
against the sharp edges of his own ambition.
The stone cold crown
presses down harder than he imagined—
a calamity that cannot be undone.
What did he think it would bring?
More doors?
A seat at the table?
Status, yes, but not the kind he wanted.
What he missed,
what no one had told him,
was that the crown wasn’t meant
to be worn.
It was meant to bury.
Copyright © Kaitlyn Gillum | Year Posted 2024
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