WITH TIME, age came,

and with age, troubles came.

the inevitable

unpredictable

unavoidable

troubles.

her heart was

larger than her head;

her heartbeat was

louder than her thoughts.

she lived a life

governed by

the autonomy

of childhood.

but childhood

didn't last

a lifetime.

there came a day when

the roles reversed.

by force or fear

by nerves or necessities

by love or hate

her mind –

fickle, traitorous –

won her heart.

won it and

kept it hidden

in shadow,

in shade,

still beating but slower,

still beating but softer,

still beating but slighter,

barely beating

barely breathing.

she could not think without her heart

and she could not feel without her mind.

everything once delineated

by clear lines,

crisp boundaries,

clean marks,

were

blurred.

she wrote.

perhaps that was all

her hazy head

could bring her to do.

through her writing,

she realized:

the chaos would come

the chaos would stay

but someday

it might go away.

through her writing,

she found others

with the same

trespassing turmoil

traversing through their

thoughts.

her discord could be settled,

sometimes.

words on paper,

characters on computers,

offered quietude.

the chaos could be calmed.

even when it weighed her down

like shackles of a self-made prison

it could be paused

even if only briefly.

but she

was

happy.