the thing that tagged along

she was empty space.
a puff of smoke, a whiff of flowers,
a single droplet of rain.
when she spoke,
she could not even hear herself.
when she laughed,
it was only to match
the joyful expressions of the people around her.
her heart was in the right place,
but her body seemed reluctant to relinquish control.
her mind was airtight, focused as an arrow.
there was no room for silliness or games.
but there was.
there it was inside her, a golden soul
with a love for living.
she remembered that part of her
so clearly, but something had shrunken it
to the size of a tiny stone.
the soul was encased in layers upon layers
of fear. the layers were sometimes smooth
and sometimes rigid,
sometimes thin and sometimes thick.
each one was strong as the toughest
animal hide.
each one was completely and utterly
absent of light, the darkest kind of black
that existed in the mortal realm.
they sucked and squeezed the golden soul
until its shine was barely visible
underneath her skin.
their mission to destroy her last hope
for happiness
was not far from completion.
she could feel her eyes closing.
and the people.
why,
the people only caused more damage.
every time she'd close up,
they pulled away a little more.
when she saw how they recoiled
from her, another layer of fear
would settle.
they pulled away another inch
and again the fear
would add weight to her soul.
she felt lonely when she was with them.
she would try to participate
but her words were worthless and dull.
she mirrored their strange behavior
and yet they would not accept her.
her heart
broke a little more
with each day.
she was empty space.
a puff of smoke, a whiff of flowers,
a single droplet of rain.
she was the afterthought,
the nobody,
the gray mist
over a spring-cooled pond.
she was the unwanted,
the unneeded,
the undesired,
and the mistreated.
she was the left out,
the disregarded.
the stared at and then
discarded.
she was the dry lake the bare tree the grainy sand the blowing wind the dying leaves the falling snow the passing breeze the empty ditch the browning grass the crumpled fern the rotten wood
and the insect struggling
in a sparkling,
dew-soaked web.
she'd thought there was no room for life
inside her
when really
the world had no room for her.
she was the thing that tagged along.

a note from me

this is a poem i wrote about five months ago when i was feeling super self-conscious and excluded. it's pretty self-explanatory; mainly about anxiety and insecurity and all that fun stuff. although it's depressing to go back and read, i am proud of it and i hope you enjoyed it. i suddenly got the urge to include some poetry in this sm/b so i dug this up and copied it onto here! so yeah lol here it is
— katherine