The Rucksack

FIRST PUBLISHED 7th June 2025

There’s a rucksack I carry.
Invisible, but heavy.
It wasn’t packed in one go,
just a slow, relentless loading.
Not days or months,
but years of collecting.
Is this what it means to get older?

Little things.
Big things.
Sharp-edged things wrapped in silence.
Unspoken griefs.
Postponed sadnesses.
Furious injustices.
Scars I walk with.
The mental load,
always ticking, never done.
Angers I’ve swallowed so well
they’ve forgotten their own names.

Life does not wait.
It shouts from every corner.
School runs, messages, deadlines,
laundry, appointments,
health scares, questions with no answers,
grief with no time to process.
Cans to open. Teeth to brush.
Always the next thing.

And still the rucksack grows.
My shoulders stoop beneath it.
My face fixed in a grimace from the weight.
My spine pressed down,
my back tight and tired.
It’s so big now
I can barely move.
It’s shaped how I stand,
how I walk,
how I see the world.

Most people would never know.
I get things done.
I make them laugh.
I say I’m fine, and mean it just enough.
The mask is practiced,
the front is firm,
but underneath it
there’s a crack I’m always patching.

My chest pulls tight like a warning.
My body forgets what hunger feels like.
Sleep arrives, but rest never does.
I move, I smile, I respond,
but the effort it takes
to keep this going
could fell a tree.
Somewhere beneath it all
I am screaming into a pillow
no one can see.

Some days
I nearly unzip it.
Nearly sit down and sort through the mess.
But life, relentless, says
not now
and pushes me forward again.

I do not fall.
Not quite.
I carry on,
half-spilling,
half-breaking,
whole-heartedly pretending.
Walking a tightrope
stretched over a drop so steep
I never look down.

And yet
there are hands I trust.
Eyes that know.
Friends who stay.
A circle, small but strong,
who say you don’t have to explain.
They are the net beneath the rope,
the ones who’d catch me
if I ever let go.
I hold onto them tightly.
My people.
My anchor.

In their presence
the ache does not vanish
but it softens.
And in the quiet between their words
I start to believe
maybe one day
I’ll take the rucksack off.
Not just drop it in a corner,
but empty it.
Air it out.
Find space to breathe.

Not today, maybe.
But one day.
When life lets me pause.
Or when I choose to anyway.

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