Cliona Chee
you flew so high that
it's still never high enough.
never enough for you,
for anyone
or anything
and it's okay,
you told yourself,
to fall once a while.
you read your own old poems
and you bit your tongue.
if you edit to perfections,
you might prefer AI to do it all.
even with mimicry of emotions,
even with everything that's gonna fall.
they don't see how it is
that every new tech would emerge
like every new theory did
and accept all these fear sourcing out of flawed humans
and you were one of them.
the problems were never from the tools,
but always from human minds
with declining level of happiness
that could not catch up
to the speed of their so-called accelerating technology
yet.
you get into the dreams
and the rabbit's hopping around the Granny again.
'If they screw you up,
why not screw them all?'
they both crafted the same letter this time.
the rabbit folded it into a paper plane
and the Granny flew it up into the sky.
'No thanks,
I wouldn't be who I dislike.
And, most of them do these out of fear.
I do things out of love and embraced human emotions
But, there's really no difference since we exist as a human species.
So, I could share some stories for you, with you if you love them all.'
they received the voice from the magical sky with aurora and sunset
above them all.
you fell out of the space.
you fell out of reach.
you fell out of the void.
'reality didn't break you,'
you said proudly with your proof,
'reality didn't break ME!'
you
said
PROUDly with your proof.
like...
you've always expected and known deep in your bones.
something else broke you, maybe?
Broke you into trillion gazillion of pieces
s-h-a-t-t-e-r-e-d randomly
in the multiple dimensions.
Broke you in many ways
you wouldn't want to admit.
You didn't realise
yourself running
You didn't realise
yourself hiding
in a shelter made of glass.
when you realise it all...
Goblins were throwing bricks and stones to the glass wall.
You had nowhere else to hide.
You had nowhere else to escape.
You had nowhere else to go.
You could do
n o t h i n g
except for
holding your tears,
biting your tongue that you tried not to, and
hugging yourself real tight
as the glass wall was
c < r > a * c - k ( i ) n = g
right in front of you.
'Reality did not break you at all.'
you confirmed this part as you see it all happening.
'People broke ME.'
you continued the next part unwillingly.
'But I let go of all these and I have choices to make.'
you comforted yourself.
'I could still run at the moment they break this.'
you tried your best to embrace the situation.
'And, I would know not to stay in glass shelters anymore.'
you were trying to tell yourself that we could fix this.
More of these shadows
came breaking the glass wall...
your tears blurred your vision.
Was it the brick that broke you?
Was it the stone that broke you?
Was it the Goblin who broke you?
maybe the Goblin...
but...
Goblin was not just Goblin.
Stones were not just stones.
Bricks were not just bricks.
What did they remind you of?
Don't answer that.
What really, truly broke you?
Don't answer that either.
It's never 'what', you see?
It's always 'who', you see.
Glass wall with more of the cracks
running as wild as your thoughts
in a split second,
the Glass shelter broke...
Glass showering on you...
'my sky raining sharp glass shards with nowhere to escape',
you had the last chance to talk about something
to no one.
Every inch of your body
felt the sharp edges
piercing through your flesh.
You knew that you would have nowhere to hide,
but you're still searching...
dragging blood and flesh as you move...
trying your best to leave the glass shelter
that you once thought was safe.
You didn't look at the Goblins.
You're afraid to see more of the others
behind the Goblins instructing them.
Nobody told you, but it's as if you knew something by nature.
You always thought that the people were on your side
to fight against creatures.
But you never thought of people
being the creatures to hurt you the most themselves.
Your weaknesses told
turn out to be their strengths
as they planned to
rain glasses on your weakest parts
and break all the things
you once loved.
you turned your face around
covering with your wounded and bleeding arms.
listen...
drip,
drip,
drip...
fresh blood dripping down
the floor
as your feet stepped on
the glass pieces
and hurt once more.
you never lose hope and still searched for more
at the places you moved towards.
sharp glasses were still falling from the sky.
'oh my God, I think I'm done?'
you had
nowhere to escape
as you're getting weaker
and tripping over
and crawling
and falling
as you didn't understand how gravity worked there...
even the floor was not safe at all.
you floated in the middle
out of a sudden...
just when you were hoping for the glasses to stop falling
somehow...
YOU became the centre of gravity
to all the glass shards
coming your way in the speed out of human measurements.
there...
you were deeply wounded for sure.
But you're still alive!
Did not understand
how did the floor suddenly exist again.
There you crawled again
as you listen to the others laughing at you
somewhere with the Goblin
far from you for now.
But the space is echoing the sound
that it's so disturbing to you
just for a lil' while.
You crawled out of distractions,
and you're looking for an exit again.
It's actually nowhere to be found,
but you knew it's here to be found.
you're so strong.
and there, you accidentally saw:
the masters to the Goblin,
the makers of the bricks,
the collectors of the stones and all the ones staring at you
were all the ones
who used to shine your favourite rocks with you
by the river you loved the most.
you once put in the most effort, love, and time
in all that you've promised each other to do...
just to polish up
more silly little rocks with you,
happily.
But,
'how?'
your inner child asked.
'HOW?'
your inner child asked again.
'HOOOWWW???'
your inner child screamed while crying like never before.
that look on your face
looked more hurtful
than the times when you were showered by glass pieces.
there, you laid down on the ground existing out of nowhere.
you were
hopelessly facing upward
towards the showering glasses that started falling again.
no hands to cover yourself up this time.
no escaping.
no nothing.
there, you remembered that phrase from Nimona
who tried shape shifting into everything so well
because she didn't belong to anything at all.
And people called her the monster
she even grew sharp teeth
just to play along
until she didn't.
that day, she got in front of the sword of her best friend's statue
with something she thought all along,
'I don’t know what’s scarier.
The fact that everyone in this kingdom
wants to run a sword through my heart…
or that sometimes
I just wanna let them.'
those exact same words from the film
were the words
echoing around you
as you laid down and stopped escaping.
Well, there's nowhere
to escape after all.
but you smiled,
because the movie had a happy ending
when she's with her new best friend.
so, it's weird that you smiled
as you let sound, vision, and senses of the glass
gradually fading out...
'but how?'
your inner child asked again for the very last time.
'there's no 'how', my dear heart.'
'People just change, that's all?'
the Brain tried to reason again.
'no, they don't. I don't!'
the heart screamed again.
hmmm...
you actually did.
you changed even faster when people come and go faster?
you just forgot.
the ones who hurt you unintentionally
were all being hurt just the same
like the cycles in nature...
Some didn't care.
Some didn't realise.
Some didn't understand.
because...
It all happened within a split second,
in the speed of light,
within each and every unconscious decision.
And so, you started thinking it through.
You started asking yourself
which step did you take that lead you into this?
If you could ever take another more suitable turn in the future,
what would it be?
But...
Let's not 'the future' while we try to survive 'the now'.
'I could take another suitable step for me for now,
what would it be?'
you asked yourself.
you let bygones be bygones
and you vision that
there would be magical honey
dropping on you
to heal the cuts.
But, you saw ants crawling on the sweets
that you once thought were great,
feeling disgusted.
You quickly stayed away from envisioning honey, sweets, and all.
'Don't come to me, dear ants, dear bees, and all.'
you were talking to them from miles away
as if they could hear you.
Crawling away with more questions in your head that you tell nobody about
except for one.
There you move again, when you feel like moving.
Questions and questions later,
it becomes a thread of stories linking up beads of questions.
You knew something all along by heart, yet the Brain just ignored.
you're crawling back to your favourite river alone.
you thought you wouldn't survive
but
oh my Goodness,
you did it again.
all pain shall end when you rise again.
but
you're thinking that
maybe you could
finally enjoy a free fall.
the kind of free fall that nobody's harmed.
the kind of free fall your heart longs for.
natural rise and fall.
like sunrise and sunset.
like tides that ebb and flow.
you fell, you rise and you free fall.
you fell into the river
and you're unsure if the fish would eat you up.
your blood made the river red...
and then the river washed away the redness...
you fell from above the waterfall...
'piak'
such a weird sound
to end a stage
of this journey.
you heard yourself
landing on a big wet rock
as the shallow river was still flowing by your side.
'did I reach the riverbank?'
nobody had an answer, lol.
you continued resting as you ran out of energy.
A question popped up as you closed your eyes:
'who would love me when I free fall and all?'
ya...
who would love you
when you free fall
and all?
Other poems here.
'who would love you
when you free fall
and all?'
with love,
૮ℓเσɳα Chee Pui Khei 徐𣳽琪,
creating mental health tech at toplove.tech,
gathering resources at mentalhealthengineering.com public squad
