If It Were Nothing by Annabelle O'Bryan in Year 13
I don’t quite know what to call it,
This noise inside my head.
It’s gentle like a whisper,
But sinister as silence.
Occasionally sharp and frequent
Like an alarm and then
Buzzing uncontrollably
And I wonder if it was warning me
That a monster was just set free.
It sometimes appears as a friend,
More familiar than supportive
So I know it’s comfort cannot be true.
Most of the time it’s my enemy;
A voice declaring my weakness.
I’m not sure how someone could be so heartless,
But then, it isn’t a someone.
But it isn’t a thing either.
Maybe it’s nothing.
But with this, I struggle more to give it a name.
Because if it were nothing,
It wouldn’t be so loud,
It wouldn’t be so clear,
It wouldn’t be so cruel.
If it were nothing,
I would be telling the truth when I say I’m fine.
I’ll choose instead, a different task;
Fight against it, destroy it.
I might talk about it,
The way it treats me,
The way it tricks me into believing I am not enough.
I’ll humiliate it, reduce it to nothing.
And I think, when I look back on it,
And people ask what it was that hurt me,
I still won’t give it a name.
Because a name gives it power,
Along with it, control over me.
It doesn’t deserve this privilege,
After all the pain it caused me.
So, with satisfaction, I will say
It wasn’t really something,
But it was also never nothing.