Too Much and Not Enough

I have always been too much and not enough.

Too much for my mother to hate, not enough for her to love.

Too much for my father to leave, not enough for him to stay.

Too much story, not enough substance.

Too much dreaming, not enough doing.

Too many ideas, not enough initiative.

Too much hope, not enough honesty.

And to think, I’m thinking and writing and feeling this,

and it’s not even ten o’clock at night, on a saturday, that was never going to be fantastic, 

but should have been fine.

But today is the day that I sobbed in my car, driving the same path I always do.

Too much drama, not enough brains.

Too much emotion, not enough sense.

Because I started thinking about how I love my mom, but I can’t, because I don’t think she knows how to love me.

Too much silence, not enough meaning.

And I’m also thinking about how I’m terrified that I’m going to ruin my own life, and others’ because I don’t know if I can pass that class. 

Too much trying, not enough succeeding.

Or do taxes, or afford to fix my car, 

or take a road trip to the ocean I love so much, or save up enough money, or be happy in life. 

Too much talking, not enough walking.

Or fall out of love so that I can find it again somewhere. 

Too much love, not enough reason.

I don’t know how to tell my friend I believe in them even though I don’t actually know if they can succeed. 

Too much belief, not enough planning.

I don’t know how to help my friend who just lost her baby. 

Too much grief, not enough healing.

I don’t know how to tell the people who have kept me alive and who help me breathe, that they’re more of my family than anyone else. 

Too much trouble, not enough reward.

I don’t know how to tell my grandmother that I really love her, but I hate her because she keeps ripping out pieces of me, while talking like she’s just scrubbing out a stain. 

Too much burned, not enough standing.

I don’t know if I can keep surviving my own life, and all that it entails.

Too much thinking, not enough breathing.

I don’t know how to tell my best friend that she’s really my sister, without making us both uncomfortable. Calling her my best friend was hard enough.

Too much implied, not enough easy.

And I’m thinking about that when I was twelve and I kept trying to carve my useless heart out of my chest, begging gods I pray to but don’t believe in to either help me or tell me what I was doing wrong. 

There are days when I miss those scars.

And somehow, I’ve known that I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me, I am wrong. 

I can tell when my lungs strangle me themselves.

And when my fingers turn so cold they’re purple, in June.

And when my every second is full of punishing myself for being too much and not enough. Because I should be able to fucking get it right.

I should have known this already. 

I shouldn’t have spent so long, daydreaming like a child, that one day I’d wake up and everything would be better, that I’d understand, that none of it was real.

Too much reading, not enough living.

I can’t keep waiting for some impossible thing to happen, for such stupid wishes to come true. There’s no power in shooting stars, or dandelion seeds, or 11:11. There’s no fucking magic.

There’s meteor showers. And weeds. And a fucking clock.

And there’s a foolish little girl who’s just trying to cope with being too much and not enough, instead of opening her eyes and living in the real world.

Too much useless wishing, not enough earnest working.

But I still don’t know how it’s possible to fit so poorly in the world.

Too much, and not enough.

Emily Rose Hein

                     Editor