Refusal of the Call 

Trying to Return to Normal

 

The call had come —
whispered through dreams and exhaustion,
through brittle smiles and bitter mornings.
Still...I stayed.

​

I still tried to hold it all up —
the house of cards I had so carefully built,
crafted of devotion and duty,
mortared with silence.

​

I told myself I couldn’t let them down —
my sons, my siblings,
my tribe who needed me to be the strong one,
the responsible one,
the “together” one.

​

I couldn’t be the one to fall apart.
I couldn’t be the one to walk away.
To do so would mean I wasn’t the good girl,
the selfless wife,
the devoted mother.

​

So I swallowed it all.
The pain.
The grief.
The deep, cellular knowing that this wasn’t life —
this was performance.

​

Each hour became heavier.
Each smile more hollow.
I was numb, and always on the edge of tears.
But I kept pushing it down,
locking the door to my own breaking.

​

          I had a dream.
          I wore a mask — Casper the Friendly Ghost —

          beneath it, I was crying, sweaty, bloody.
          Desperate to get it off.
          And my sister was there,
          in her own mask — Stretch, Casper’s companion —
          and when I tried to peel mine away,
          she pushed back.

​

That dream was truth, veiled in symbol.
I was being haunted by the image I had been told to be.
Friendly. Harmless. Loyal. Light-hearted.
But underneath… I was dying.

​

I began to try, in small moments,
to speak my truth.
To find words for the ache, the exhaustion, the trauma.
But I didn’t feel safe.
I didn’t know how to be that vulnerable
in a system that required my mask to stay in place.

​

To stay was survival.

To leave was death.

But neither were truly living.

​

So I stayed.

​

I stayed, not because I didn’t hear the call —
but because the cage was familiar,
and the outside world was too unknown.

​

And the voices of obligation screamed louder
than the whisper of my soul.

​

But even as I stayed,
the mask began to loosen.