it's all death, despondency and dissociation through the day and 

sometimes for weeks or months on end. i think i've 

woken up three times this year 

alone to the realisation i have not stopped hurting 

and i'm not going to get better until i stop just "getting through 

it".

you can't just get through it. 

pain demands to be felt. 

pain demands to be felt. 

pain fucking demands to be felt 

and if you ignore it 

you will go mad. 

i have been avoiding this conversation for years but i 

am not okay. i am afraid of abandonment 

and i am afraid of disappointment and i am afraid 

that every single thing in this world experiences undeserved 

pain and i cannot stop that; i cannot stop 

any of it. 

my father told me years ago that there is no point crying 

over this magnitude of milk but i just can't 

stop. 

i just can't stop watching the sidewalk and 

seeing all the cuts and gutters and shadows and 

knowing where they started. i don't want death or 

destruction or loss i want love. i want love for everyone 

in the room from the moment they enter it to the second they 

leave, but i can't 

promise that. i can't promise it 

to myself let alone everyone and 

that's it. 

that's what really hurts and upsets and breaks and 

wakes me up at four a.m, 

what keeps me afraid of commitment, what tortures my mind, 

and if you ask where my disorder came from i 

will list food and manners and separation 

anxiety but i will NOT

admit that i made the choice to 

give love endlessly and 

i am TERRIFIED i'm 

one of the very few 

left. 

did we really deserve that?

- Charlotte E.E. Griffiths 

@C.G.POETRY