When the sun goes away
You’re not that good at being nice, when you are not being nice to you.
You sit there in your room, the bathroom is calling for you to take a shower but the curtain is not drawn and the light isn’t seeping in through the corner. You left the milk on the table and what you wanted to eat is expired, the alcohol at the store is too far for you to bother.
Vexation is setting in now, and depression is enraptured by the state of you. You’re not that good at being happy when the sun goes away. You’re not that good at being nice when you are not being nice to you.
The hoover is too strident to listen to, you need peace and quiet. Everyone around you is picking up where they left off; but for you you’re overworked and too ill to make a dent in your to do list.
It’s alright it’s okay, you tell yourself. You’re still you and you can be happy again but it’s weighing down on you. It’s a battle everyday but when the sun goes away what price do you have to pay?
Do you remember that you lost a furry friend he’s not here to hug you. You’re a fool and you will never make it through the day, that is what they told you. When you cry you make an ugly face and it bothers you.
Everyday has its struggles and today I face mine. Every tear has its place to go and on my cheek there is a vine.
I dont know what it’s like to be me two weeks ago. How did it feel when you saw his lookalike, did you feel peace within your heart, did you think for a moment he would stay and never depart again? How about the time you saw that mother and her daughters they were all wearing sunflower dresses, did it look like sunrise to you? Did it save you from the overwhelming crowd around you?
Now that you’re sad and all that is left to do is feel it. You focus too hard on the things you have to do, the things you believe cannot wait until another day. So the things from the past that broke your heart rear their ugly heads and now you’re crying about your ex, the time you made it out alive and the other person died, the death you had nothing to do with but that you still took fault for it.
You think, maybe I am not that good at being your husband. Maybe I can’t make the amount of money you’ve always wanted. Maybe I should throw you out and tell you that it’s all your fault, and all that would ever do to me is to prove even more that I suck at being good to you.
I’m sorry that you feel the weight of everything I wrote above, I am sorry more that you may never get a hug. It’s hard to exist when the problem is ourselves, it takes too much energy to breathe when you forget to take it in.
It’s a struggle writing tunes when nobody ever settles in. Though it’s a different kind of suffering when everybody hates you. When you’re struggling, they run from you; they mute their phones but will come right over when you’re faking it.
You try to save a soul at the hospital but they were gone before you could reach the door and by the looks of it it’s all your fault so you take the pillow and you scream inside.
Then the new day begins, your suit is on and the fake smile is all they see.
About the Creator
Caitlin Charlton
poetry too close to home
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More stories from Caitlin Charlton and writers in Psyche and other communities.
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I woke up at 3 a.m., heart racing, body drenched in sweat. There was no nightmare. No sound had startled me awake. My brain had simply decided, as it did most nights, that sleep was a luxury I couldn't afford. I lay there in the dark, listening to my partner breathe peacefully beside me, and felt a familiar wave of exhaustion wash over me. Not the kind that sleep could fix. The kind that lived in my bones, that made every day feel like I was walking through water, that came from spending every waking moment on high alert for dangers that rarely came. I was twenty-nine years old, and I was so tired of being tired. The Weight of Invisible Armor Most people don't understand what it's like to live in a body that never feels safe. They don't know what it's like to walk into a coffee shop and immediately catalog all the exits. To sit in meetings only half-listening because you're too busy reading everyone's micro-expressions for signs of anger or disappointment. 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My father's moods were weather systems I learned to forecast—a certain tone of voice meant a storm was coming, a particular kind of silence meant I should disappear into my room. My mother's anxiety was contagious, her catastrophic thinking a constant background hum that taught me the world was dangerous and disaster lurked around every corner. I became hypervigilant out of necessity. The girl who could sense tension before it erupted. The child who perfected the art of reading rooms and adjusting herself accordingly. The teenager who never fully relaxed because relaxing meant being caught off guard. It kept me safe then. But now? Now it was killing me slowly, one anxious moment at a time. The Thousand Tiny Calculations People don't see the work that hypervigilance requires. They don't see the constant calculations running in the background of my mind: Is my boss's email shorter than usual? Did I do something wrong? Why did my friend take three hours to respond? Are they mad at me? My partner seems quiet. Is this the beginning of the end? Every interaction becomes a puzzle to solve, every silence a threat to decode. I'm exhausted before lunch because I've already survived a dozen imagined catastrophes that never happened. At the grocery store, I'm planning escape routes. At dinner parties, I'm monitoring everyone's alcohol intake in case someone gets aggressive. During normal conversations, I'm three steps ahead, anticipating conflict and preparing my defense. My therapist calls it hyperarousal. My body calls it normal. The rest of the world calls it anxiety. They're all right. The Body That Remembers The cruelest part of hypervigilance is that it lives in your body, not just your mind. I could intellectually understand that I was safe, that my current life bore no resemblance to my childhood, that most people weren't threats. But my nervous system didn't get the memo. My heart still raced when someone raised their voice—even in excitement. My stomach still dropped when I heard footsteps approaching quickly. My shoulders still tensed when I heard keys in the door, even though it was just my partner coming home from work. Trauma had taught my body that survival meant constant vigilance. And bodies, it turns out, are slow learners when it comes to unlearning fear. I tried everything to calm down. Meditation made me more anxious—sitting still only gave my brain more time to catastrophize. Exercise helped, but only temporarily. Alcohol worked until it didn't, until one glass became three became a problem I didn't want to admit. What I needed wasn't relaxation techniques. What I needed was to convince my nervous system that it was finally, truly safe. The Breaking Point My wake-up call came on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. I was driving home from work, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. My vision tunneled. My hands went numb. I pulled over, certain I was having a heart attack. 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Comments (2)
Definitely the place a lot of Americans are going in a time when they feel they have no purpose or goals, just the endless work days and pay check to pay check. It shades the color of everything.
A new perception of things replaces every pain to humble us. A very expressive story that has moved me.