Shelf
SHELF © Gayna Rose Madder
Living a life beside myself
Never making myself the centre of my own world
Suddenly looking in through a pane of glass
Seeing myself upon a shelf
Labelled as something limited but useful;
Something I never chose to be thought of as
I really want to run away, but don’t know where I’ll go.
I don’t think I’ll find solace anywhere I know.
I really want to go and hide, to lock myself away;
But there is no corner dark enough to quite exclude today.
Living a life beside myself
Functioning only when and if I’m asked to
Like an old game that nobody wants to play
Choosing to stay upon that shelf
Next to the box of broken dolls and toy parts
Waiting to be put back together one day
Operating the controls without owning the equipment
Or even finding out what it’s meant to do
Is not the way to steer myself away from troubled places
I don’t want to be rescued from what I’ve turned into
I wish that I was somewhere else, and didn’t have to fear
But nowhere I can think of is far enough from here
I really want to run from life, as though asleep, or dead,
But something wakes inside me, and makes me live, instead
(Of) living my life upon a shelf
Waiting for someone else to brush the dust off
I’m starting to realise that I’m able to
Live for myself and through myself
Making myself the centre of my own world
And really finding out what I can do;
Really finding out what I can do.