hamster cage wheels

Life is moving too fast 

I am unable to keep up with it

.

I smile and I sigh 

I smile and I sigh again 

I sigh and I sigh again 

.

Is your death my illness? 

or is the grief my illness? 

Is it the love I've lost? 

or is it the love I never spoke of that has become this sickness? 

Or are these the wounds of the thoughts I never shared 

The feelings I held in,

the pride and self esteem that I let sink deep in the sea -

that are now tearing the insides of my body 

Making me bleed,

making me tired

Oh im so tired.

I want it to stop

I want the world to stop spinning 

so that I can stand still without feeling dizzy again

.

.

I feel like I'm in a hamster cage 

Stuck running and running and running

Waiting for someone or something to magically arrive

And to stop the wheel from turning over again,

so that I can finally get off 

and catch my breath

(I could slow down and get off on my own, but I don't know how)

.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar