Bandages and Bullet Wounds

I thought I wasn't gonna make it.

As I lay in my bed in the middle of the night with my blanket up to my chin, I wanted to hide from the world, away from the sea of never-ending dark blue ocean. I also wanted an escape, a freedom away from my current life that was a well of thick, black words, and I was at the bottom where I couldn't see my way out and where people couldn't hear my screams.

As I lay in my bed with my blanket up to my chin, I thought I wouldn't make it in life since my life felt like a never-ending downstream river. I thought I'd die in that river before I'd be able to rise to the peak of a mountain, staring down at what I've accomplished.

I thought I wasn't gonna make it, but now I'm going to try because trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

Bandages and Bullet Wounds is Angel-Clare Linton's third poetry collection.