A poem I wrote in 2017
You attempted
and I survived
If you would have quiet
I wouldn’t be alive
Doubts and frustrations
Crawled beneath your pillow case
Seat belt for safety
But it wasn’t wrapped around your waist.
They called you Rapunzel
but you weren’t beauty
or grace.
You felt you didn’t deserve the world
Like you didn’t know your place.
But you know who you are
Everybody said you’d be a star
But you burned yourself out too quickly…
Desperate for light
Desperate to fight
You tore yourself down
so by the end of the night
Your spider crawled back into your ear.
And so it appears
as starvation nears
your eyes start to tear
You say spiders are your fear
Not because of how they look
But because of the things they tell you.
Day and night
When the spiders would light
the fuse that would accuse you
of the things you know you are not.
An idea so vile
You gambled yourself
for the style of what?
For who?
Hurting yourself for the idea of you?
I often imagine what the inside of you must be screaming,
“What have I done to deserve such damage!?
I have done nothing but give you time!”
You treated your body
Like your body wasn’t mine.
But that wasn’t you
And that cannot be me.
Because I have seen the light
when you missed it
I don’t dwell on life
I kiss it
I don’t hang on my rope
because it’s gone
You took that chance
and you’ve made me strong
I felt recovery was just as impossible as God
but the impossible is possible
Because you, Teri Underhill, attempted
But I, Teri Underhill, survived.