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.