‘I Kill My Sorrows…’

Fighting your own mind is so exhausting sometimes because there are always a million thoughts running through, and not much to keep it all under control. The worst of it is when we cannot get our thoughts under control and they end up taking a darker turn than expected. It always feels as though we need to put our own sadness away because ‘nobody wants to see a sad face’. But the truth is that sadness isn’t something that can be helped. I wish more people realized that. This is a poem about the exact moment when we’re told that we need to put our sad faces away because it’s ‘killing the vibe’. I don’t think people understand how badly this invalidates somebody’s feelings.

Happy (???) reading, I guess. Xx

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I kill my sorrows
And bury them deep,
Like I’ve done before
With all the secrets I keep,
I lock them in a chest,
Throw away the key;
If I don’t, I’ll break
The only thing holding me–

I’ve watched them come,
I’ve watched them leave,
Heard promises being made
Broken in a heartbeat,

And if I don’t,
They’d drown me whole,
Until I’m fighting for air,
But if I do,
I’d tear my own soul,
Drowning in despair.

So I kill my sorrows,
I might as well.

I kill my sorrows
And hide them away,
I’ve been told before
It shows on my face,
I’ve seen them walk in,
Watched them walk away,
I tell nobody–
Nobody ever stayed.

I’ve kept it to myself,
I’ve always done,
Who could lend me an ear
When I have no one?

So, I kill my sorrows,
I bury them deep,
Until I have nothing left,
Nowhere to go,
Nothing to feel,
I kill more of me.

I kill my sorrows
Before they can kill me.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan

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Featured Image by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash