sombre

belladonna eulogies

wednesday november 10th

10:04 AM
today i wake up and felt the weight of everything i’m supposed to be. 
it clings to me, like skin too tight, like a dress i never asked to wear but can’t take off. 
i breathe and the air is heavy, it fills me, presses against my ribs until i’m about to burst. 
but i won’t. 
i can’t. 
i won’t crack under it, under the eyes, the words, the hands that shape me, reshape me, pull at the edges, try to make me smaller. 
i bend, i bend so much i think i might snap, but i don’t. i can’t.  
the mirror watches me. it’s quiet today, but i hear it. 
“be this. be more. be less.”
the whispers crawl along my skin like ants, biting, stinging, leaving little wounds i can’t see but feel, always feel. 
the weight sits on my chest, a stone made of every word that was ever said to me, every glance, every smile that wasn’t really a smile, more like a tightening around the lips, like someone swallowing something bitter. 
and i think— 
i think i am all of these things, but none of them. 
how can i be everything and nothing? 
how can i exist in this body that isn’t mine, that belongs to them? 
to their gaze, their hands, their voices that shape me into someone i don’t recognize. 
they asked me to be soft but not too soft, strong but not too strong, silent but still heard. 
they want me to fit. 
fit into their little box, tied with a ribbon, neat, tidy, perfect. 
but i spill over the edges, seep through the cracks, and still they try to contain me. 
to hold me down, to smooth me out, to make me more palatable, more acceptable. 
and i let them, because i don’t know how not to. 
because every day i try to remember who i was before i became what they wanted me to be. 
but the memory is fading, like breath on glass, a shape, a shadow, gone before i can hold it. 

8:56 PM
tonight i’ll lie in bed and close my eyes, feel the weight again, always the weight, pressing me down, holding me in place. 
but i’ll breathe, even if the air is heavy, even if it hurts. 
i’ll breathe because maybe tomorrow i’ll remember how to be just me, nothing more, nothing less.