"Atlassian Composure" by Kai Wilkie

I pick up the slack—
chores, bills, the things she drops in her haze.
Her promises vanish in clouds of smoke,
and I’m left to fill in the gaps she leaves behind.

I used to look up to her,
used to believe she was the woman I’d become—
before the drugs, the lies, the broken promises.
Now I’m the one who holds up our world,
while she drifts in and out of reality,
handing me the weight of her choices
as if they’re mine to carry.

The more she slips,
the heavier it gets, pressing down,
fracturing me piece by piece,
splintering my bones beneath the load.

I’m sick of it.
Sick of being Atlas,
of catching the pieces she shatters
without a thought for how I’m breaking.

She’s supposed to be the strong one, the mother,
and everyone calls her strong—
even as she shifts the weight onto me.

But I’m tired of carrying her world,
of straining under a sky no one else sees.
No one knows what it’s like to live in her shadow,
to be crushed beneath the weight she should bear,
to wait for protection from someone who can’t protect herself.

I’m done with it.
I’m not Atlas.
I’m no god.
And I won’t keep holding up a world
that was never mine to shoulder.

             
Kayliegh “Kai” Wilkie, Waldorf senior, zombie-cowboy aficionado, and plant parent to a Venus Flytrap named Twooey, can often be found haunting the library. With an iPad in one hand and a sketchbook in the other, they look like they’re either plotting world domination—or maybe just the perfect doodle.