Let us trade
A promise for a promise
I won't do it again
And you won't notice when I do
Promise me to keep it secret
If I'll break my promise
'Cause we both know I will
Promise me not to care
And not to worry
Because it won't change what I do
But that won't matter
Because I'll never do it again
And I promise too
I'm a liar for saying that I'll stop
I'm a fool for believing that I could
And I'm a coward for not even telling you
You can't trust me
Yet you do
You know I'll never keep it
Yet you pretend to believe me
Maybe it's better this way
Keeping up the illusion
Trading again and again
Like this time it would work
Then I break my promise
Then you'll break yours
I'll relapse
And you'll notice
And you'll care like I told you not to
And you'll worry
And tell me to try quitting again
And I will, making the same old deal
Let us trade
A promise for a promise
I won't do it again
And you won't notice when I do
☆
I made this promise before.
I said I would never hurt myself again and I believed I wouldn't, but I did. But because I had made a promise and was afraid to break it I didn't tell my mother or anyone. The few persons who knew were sure I'd stopped.
The thing is, relapses happen.
And the promise to never relapse is destined to be broken.
There are two things coming to my mind about this, and I'm pretty sure I didn't come up with either.
Firstly, forever is a damn long time. And chances are you're not that good with divination, so making promises about the whole future might not be the best idea if you plan on keeping them.
Secondly, only make promises about things you can control. Sure, you can decide to stay clean, but if you get another episode of your illness or have a mental breakdown you're not really in control. And if you then relapse it's hard to say if you even could've prevented that.
And: It's okay to break promises. It doesn't make you a bad person. Just try to learn from it.
You said you'd stay clean forever and couldn't?
Maybe just promise that you'll try your best, because that you can do. And that's more than enough, it doesn't even always have to be your best.
YOU ARE READING
It does get better.
PoetryPeople say it will get better. But to be fair, most of them never were in your place. They say you will get happy again, but how can they know? I've struggled with trauma, mental illnesses, and self harm for many years. These are (mostly) poems - ab...
