“I don’t know who they see.”

That’s all I wrote,

for weeks and weeks.

Those six words lay joined together,

holding hands and feet

beneath the sheets

of lined paper.

“I don’t know who they see.”

Was all that marked

the first lines

of my son’s plastic bound notebook.

Page after page,

of clean paper.

But somehow that’s all I wrote,

on the question I probably pondered the most.

Which version of myself was painted,

what image of myself

did I allow to be created?

Can they see,

the parts of me

I’ve always hated?

Maybe I smiled,

maybe I allowed myself to feel joy,

and then got trapped on the outside of my own happy moment.

Looking in,

pressing my skin

against the glass box that surrounds the snippets and scenes of what looks to be my reality.

Shielding me emotionally from

my own positive experiences.

Somehow stuck on the outside of my world,

just looking in,

battling to get closer to the here and now,

but then quickly giving in

to that more recognisable state

of being simply displaced.

I don’t know who they see.

I suppose I could seem quite free.

Unkempt hair,

that goes to even greater lengths

than I’d go to hide myself from me.

Masses of brown,

a hair for each of my darkest days,

and now,

coarse greys,

growing up and out

in the most peculiar ways.

And a kink,

from hair tied back.

From being dragged into my world

by my ponytail.

I don’t know who they see,

maybe the person I am,

subdued,

wrists bound

in leg restraints

at quarter past three.

I don’t know who they see.

If like me

they flinch,

at every inch

of my exposed flesh,

like it’s poisonous.

Whether they see the subtle dark rings

beneath my eyes

and assume I lie awake at night and cry.

Or just that I’m aging,

or burned out,

that I have stories to tell,

or that i’m just tired.

Whether I seem weathered.

Whether they see I’ve been fighting forever.

Whether they know I never say never.

Whether it looks like I have my shit together,

or whether I’m clever.

Whether they see the teenage girl who flashed her chest and said - whatever.

I don’t know who they see.

I’m loud,

I’m quiet.

I’m powerful,

I’m weak.

I’m trapped,

I’m free.

I’m thirteen thousand, four hundred and fifty five days and counting.

I’m every memory I’ve recounted.