escapril day 22: nourishment
(but I pretty much wrote about the opposite)
you think bottling emotions will save you
but it’s only collecting poison for later
that will rot and spoil in your neglect –
it will eventually force down your throat
or inject into your neck, your hands will fly to the wound
to try and muffle the agony, but it’s too late.
to ignore is not to dispose, even hauling the bottle
overboard into a heaving ocean is only
a compromise or a suspension,
delaying the consequence to a later date
don’t you realise to suppress is to stifle?
to dismiss pain is not a cleanser, it’s a toxin
that will eat at any nourishment you try and pump
into your veins, those 8 glasses of water
will be nothing against the venom
you are unknowingly massaging into your skin.
you will notice the infection, the eruption,
but you’re doing everything right, right?
one day that bottle will wash up to shore
to be uncorked by a stranger who will choke
on it’s fumes, no one
should need to carry a gas mask in their pocket
just in case.
you won’t realise how your own vision has been
disfigured and deformed until
someone is coughing and spluttering
at the upheaval of your hidden anguish
you tried to ignore.
because twisting emotions into a big black bag
or stuffing them in drawers won’t save you from them.
a thought temporarily slipped from the mind
is far from forgotten, but you did forget
the inevitable: that bottle was destined to explode
one day, and you
saved it for later.
it seems you also forgot that such pollution
is only contagious if you let it brew,
now it’s contaminated you
and maybe if you get too close,
someone else could catch it too.
the contents of the universe can only ever be
shaken up and rearranged
and if you don’t allow the contents of you
to escape in small puffs of smoke while it can,
that bottle will shake, shake, shake,
unsettled in the rocking of the waves.
you won’t notice as it bubbles and it foams,
you can’t hear the hissing but you will hear the pop!
you didn’t realise a bottle could cause such disrupt,
but you will never be able to stop the volcano
when it decides to erupt.
Lauren Kathleen 