the sea anemone in me

No matter how much you fill my pockets and garnish my head with wreaths of flowers and mend the tears and patch the holes and stitch up my wounds, they haven't stopped aching. Sometimes I'm scared they never will and if you grow tired or frustrated, will the new pieces crumble or will I wander in the dark? Might I get so far from safety and find myself at the edge of the world, would I stop then or lay down and die, or perhaps let myself fall off, uncaring, unafraid; untied from everything that should hold me here. I'm afraid to hear I don't know my own strength, or the depth of my bravery, I'm afraid the truth would be I know there is none, or what little there has been is dwindling. Or that maybe I've always been running on fumes and some way I've willed myself on this far but how long could I possibly keep it up? And maybe I've given you an image of myself that's blown up like a fanciful balloon animal and slowly I am losing air and soon enough I will shrivel away to nothing but what's left, all the broken, trampled pieces I've been left with. I wonder in the dark, what would be too much for you to bare and please, let me never get that gone.