numb — Summary

Guilt There's guilt inside my heart Numbness I feel nothing as to whatever happened Lethal That same old verse is repeating itself Doing the mundane activities Eyes wide awake Wake up like never got enough sleep Put the blanket over my head Trying hard to sleep again and again Hibernate What dates today What time is it right now How many days I've spent Only to feel nothing In this very room of of mine I don't remember When the last time i had proper meal Not even remember how my sleep patterns change to the old one Not even remember How the fresh air feels like

This mundane activity is killing me The fatigue I've felt A month has passed i guess Or maybe two or three Is it really the activities?

People ask if I'm okay Much like the broken record And have become accustomed I've grown to answer Habitually Much like the broken record as well I'm fine I'm perfectly okay Is living is what you've asked for I'm doing fine Perfectly okay Because I'm not broken

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

Written as a stream of short, flat lines, the poem puts us inside a speaker who feels guilt and almost nothing else. Days blur together in one room. The speaker sleeps, wakes tired, pulls the blanket back over their head, and loses track of the date, of meals, even of what fresh air feels like. "Hibernate" sums it up: shutting down to get through.

The second half turns outward. When people ask if they're okay, the speaker answers automatically, like a broken record, and the repetition of "I'm fine" and "perfectly okay" starts to sound hollow. The closing line, "Because I'm not broken," reads as a defence, and the stress on it makes us doubt it.

The mood is heavy, tired and quietly lonely. The plain wording and the unpolished, uneven phrasing suit the numbness being described. Nothing dramatic happens, and that is the point: the pain is in the sameness, and in how well the speaker hides it.

Read also

More by taelintt

All poems
Anxioustaelintt

Stand

red against white grey against black blue against purple floats around endlessly
Anxioustaelintt

I'm Losing

I'm drowning again The youth is not coming back The reflection of mine I can't dare to look at it
Sadtaelintt

* * *

it kills me it makes me sick I'm drown inside my thoughts I don't feel like me