Firstborn Daughters Must Die Exhausted.
I am exhausted.
There’s a kind of exhaustion that comes with the betrayal of your body or maybe it is you that betrays your body, who can tell? Your limbs are too heavy to carry you, your head too tired to think; your eyes unable to aid your vision, closing as the hands of time move— tick, tock, tick, tock. Your entire being begging and asking for respite — just a little care, just a little sleep and I would work again for you. Just a little care, just a little sleep and I would carry your being. Just a little care, maybe not even a sleep, a nap might do, and I would hold you once more.
I am exhausted.
The exhaustion I speak of comes from my core. I cannot reach it, I cannot ask what it wants. Does it want sleep? But I have slept, I have been sleeping for so long. Not for rest but for an escape. I have slept while men are awake. I have slept in places that are not for rest. I have slept to calm that which eats at my heart but even in my sleep, my heart does not know rest. Does it want care? Too bad I have forgotten how to care for me. So what then do we do? Stuff ourselves with food? But the mere thought of food makes me want to heave.
I am exhausted.
But they do not know this, the people I share this life with. They do not know. They show me videos that are made for those that want to laugh, not for me for I have forgotten what it means to want to laugh. But for them, not for myself, I pretend; I laugh. I say, “oh how funny!” I cackle appropriately at banter. I join in conversations. I throw in an advise here, a witty remark there. I hug and smile and say how do you do! I have animated talks with animated people; hollowed out people are so good at living a life they are not familiar with. But when the sun begins to take its leave, carrying its heat and warmth with it, when the sky turns a colorful orange, almost making me smile in wonder, I retreat and observe. Who saw the sheen in my eyes today, the sheen that is only caused by tears that refuse to be shed? Who will I run to to carry this exhaustion with me? I am exhausted. Who will I reveal my truth to? Who is bold enough to not run away from me? Who is strong enough to hold this thing for me while I pause to breathe, to take a look inside of me to see the reason why I have simply refused rest?
I am exhausted.
This thought has bothered me for so long: what happens when the place, the people you know as home become a cage? What then happens when you are split into two; one half wanting to run without so much as a glance back, and the other half wants to play hero. What then do you do when you realise the people you have known as home are all in this cage with you? I want to fly away; I dream of the beach. A little home that is mine. Music. Dance. Hands to hold. Smiles. Laughter that is conceived from the soul. Sweat from existing. Books. Lights. A life that is out of reach but still within my fingertips if I stretch a bit more. Something like community, something like magic.
I am exhausted.
In this life, in my present, I am a hero with a heart that beats out of rhythm. I want to save my home that is in a cage. My tears and stuttering words are my super power. I tell them to stop hurting each other, I tell them to exist as one, just be. I don’t want to run even when the cage is set on fire, the heat burning me. I am attracted to the pain this home brings. The hurt and the tears and the pain are the things I have come to find as familiar. My entire being has been tied down to the iron of the cage. I cannot help and I cannot leave. So I weep. I weep when I see other homes healing and strengthening. I weep when I see other homes breaking. I weep because in my hopelessness is anger and in my anger is worthlessness. I weep because I ask questions: “why am I here, in this home, if I cannot save?” “Why am I being hurt so much by the ones I love to death?” “Where do I run to, where is my refuge?” I weep because these questions have no answers.
I have looked back and looked ahead but all I feel is suffocation. I see no light at the end of this tunnel, only more darkness and darkness and hurt. Everywhere hurts. Every part of me is exhausted. I want to lay my soul down for a nap, not even a sleep, is that too much? Is it too much to ask for peace? Is it out of reach to ask for a life filled with love and genuine “how are yous?” Is it not in my place to ask that my home, the one I have known all my life, the one that is now in a cage, should hold me, love me? Is it a lot to ask to just live? In my hopelessness is anger and it is in this anger I query God. Why have You watched me play a hurting hero? Why have You watched as my home is thrown into a cage that is set on fire? I am exhausted. Do I not mean much to You? Have I ever meant anything to You? Why have you held other homes and forsaken mine? I am exhausted.
It is in this anger I tell Him that He is not fair. That He prefers some above others, playing favourites like we are dolls. Maybe me and my home are the ugly dolls, the ones He has outgrown, the ones that bore Him. But whose fault is it that we are ugly? Whose fault is it that the potter’s ceramics keep on breaking? The potter’s, he should source for better mud. After this anger is a sense of worthlessness and it is in this worthlessness I apologize, although halfheartedly for I do not know who to trust again. I have lost sight of my carrier.
I am exhausted
When my home comes calling, when they say save us, save us, this hurting hero stretches herself — this her little self that would soon snap and tear— and tries to cover them. And it hurts so bad, the stretching and snapping. I know I cannot save them but I am addicted to trying. I am addicted to stretching myself so thin that I do not know where I end and where my home begins. We are interwoven like the Ouroboros; the head eating the tail, the tail strangling the head; the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning.
I am so exhausted. And I when I think of my exhaustion, I desire rest— an eternal rest. The kind of rest that does not wait, does not require permission. The kind of rest that is born out of the fear of this exhaustion. I am exhausted and I want to sleep, sleep, sleep. I am exhausted, but if I sleep, if I give into this lull of eternal rest, who would carry my home? Who would douse the fire set on its cage? So I clean the water from my eyes and hold myself, since no one would hold me. The water from my eyes will put off the fire set on the cage in which my home is. My determination and strength will set my home free, even if it kills me.
