Can You Save Me
Mommy can you save me? The world is so much bigger than I thought and I’m afraid of falling down and never getting up again. That the earth will open up its dirty maw and swallow me whole and no one will even notice I’m gone. Maybe I’m already gone and that’s why I’m silent when I want to be screaming, when I want to be thrashing and biting and snarling and hissing.
Mommy does it stop hurting? The pain in my soul is so hard to ignore and the days feel so long and I don’t know how it’ll ever end. Can you see it? The hole in my chest? It’s been leaking fluid for a few years now and I don’t know if it’s blood or plasma or some secret third thing that the universe hasn’t handed me yet. And everything there hurts and the bandaids I got for my twenty-first birthday aren’t big enough to hold together a wound that only I can see.
Mommy can you hold me? Across the millions of miles and the ocean? Can you play with my hair and promise me everything’s going to be okay? Carry me to my bed and stay with me while I fall asleep? Do you need me to stay with you while you fall asleep? Mommy I need you do you need me? Do you need me? Do you need me?