Mess

In the songs and the books, they write of being a mess as though it was visible. As though it looked like the aftermath of a forest fire or a tsunami. They describe it as though that person was a messy room, clothes on the floor, last night's dinner on a table, pillows on the other side of the room, paper peeking out from under the bed.

It's not true. It's his shaking hand reaching for mine as his world unravels before his eyes. It's the tears in her eyes, glistening but not daring to fall. It's the nervous smile on his face because everything is driving him insane. It's finding her in fetal position because something hit where it hurts. It's the way his facial expressions change while the wheels in his head are switching directions back and forth to make sense of it all.

A mess is many things but a human being a mess isn't like that of a rock slide. It's the little moments when he or she is losing their mind but only a select few can see it. "I'm sorry I'm a mess," she says and I'm sitting there, looking at her radiant beauty, asking myself why you don't look like the mess of a hurricane.