Break

Everything is heavy:

The head, the heart, the body, the soul-- if it's still there.

On the brink of nuclear meltdown,

somewhere, there's a crack that can't be found or fixed.

All that can be done is to sit, wait, hope for the best.

But it's not a nuclear reactor melting,

it's you.

Hugging your knees in the middle of the night,

trying to swallow sobs as everything grips you,

all at once, all too quickly.

The wind is warm, and yet,

you feel like your heart is pumping icicles

into the freezing rivers that are your veins.

There are voices in your head,

telling you it's alright,

everything's fine.

But there are mobs in there,too.

Screaming profanities, infidelities,

injustices, and flaws.

You hear them above all else.

Barely breathing as you try to not drown in your own tears,

as you struggle for a breath,

the staggered kind,

when it feels like your lungs are racing to catch something,

anything, to fill them, to help them move.

Your heart is beating in a staccato beat,

you can barely tell when one beat ends

and another begins.

But there you sit,

knees to your chest, 

tears streaming down your face,

choking back sob after sob,

as you wage war against yourself.

There you sit,

a hollow shell,

an unrecognizable human.

Because the last time you really,

truly looked,

you were still alive.

Hello, Again

I saw the horrible boy who made me laugh today. I was out on the town for business and had to walk a back road through the old churchyard to get myself a cab back to the office because the Park's streets were packed with festival goers. It had been a long day, and the afternoon was not even halfway done yet. I finally got a cab right before the road turned in to the church. As I was seating myself, I saw him walk out of the double doors and turn to the direction where I stood seconds ago. Five more seconds and he would have seen me. I was relieved, at first, like I had dodged a bullet. But a few seconds later, as he began shrinking away in the distance, a heaviness settled over me.

I had half a mind to ask the driver to stop, no, I changed my mind, I need to speak to him. In my head I had already ran to him, a big smile on my face, ready and willing to continue our camaraderie as if the past two years never happened, as if he never broke my heart. In my head, I had snuck up on him and looped my arm in his, only to laugh as he would panic and push me away. He always liked his personal space, and he was never one for random touches. Then he would laugh, too, and it would be like it was before, I would feel nineteen again, alive again. He would ask me how I was doing, and I would tell him of the hellish day I was having, and the problematic people I was dealing with. He would laugh at my troubles, like he always did, and then put an arm around my shoulders, comment on my height and tell me I could handle it in the most backhanded and cryptic way possible. I would have left my cares by the road as we walked down the path he was headed and talked about movies and existentialism, and the coming elections.

But I didn't tell the driver to stop. Why risk opening the floodgates of emotions that you so sturdily locked away years ago? I watched, still, as he disappeared when the cab turned the corner, and I remembered how he used to make me laugh at everything: my stress, my problems, the characters I so loved in the book I was reading, myself. I miss telling him my ideas and watching his eyes light up with a million stars because he was thinking the same thing, and our ideas would get crazier and funnier because our cuckoo minds would meet each other halfway.

He was the thunder to my lightning, and although he judged me, and he judged me heavily, he understood. He was a horrible, horrible boy, but he knew what to say to make me angry, to make me smile, to make me feel. I was grateful for that, and had I not handed my heart so carelessly to him without his knowledge, without his consent, we may still be friends now. Because what he told me when he broke my heart would not have hurt so much. He did not ask me to love him, he did not want me to, but we love who we love. I think that was my fault, I have a tendency to feel too deeply, to love too much.

But there he was and then, just like two years ago, he just wasn't there anymore. I miss him, very much, and that, I guess, is my fault, too.

Crisis

You tell yourself, "You don't understand," and then laugh because how's that possible? You're talking to yourself. How can you not understand?

But it's there, isn't it? The thought? The feeling? You like too easily, you care too much, feel too deeply, and YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Then you draw it on your hand, on the back of your palm, you engrave it into your heart and carve it on your mind: I DON'T UNDERSTAND, I DON'T UNDERSTAND, over and over and over again until it consumes you; until it becomes you, until it IS you.

Engrave it so deep until it digs into every inch of your bones, on your tendons, your muscles, your arteries. Let it become your blood and let it run through you like acid until it melts away everything you once thought you knew about yourself; and all these unfamiliar songs that make you want to scrape your skin off with your own fingernails play on repeat in your mind and YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T.

With every single drum beat, with every unknown baseline, you feel yourself peel away bit by bit, piece by piece, until all you can do is scrape yourself off the floor and drip yourself into a mask and perfectly pressed clothes. You brave the world because they won't understand, they won't, you don't.

You carry on day after day, year after year, and eons pass and still: you don't understand, you don't understand, over and over again.

You stop, try to rebuild, rename, recreate the shadow of yourself before you stopped comprehending your existence, but there's nothing left. It's just goop and bones tattooed with your mantra, and unfamiliar music blaring on broken speakers.

You turn to smoke, to burning liquids, to broken bottles and sharpened blades, empty vessels who offer hollowed out love. You build yourself up again and again, and... No, you don't understand.

My darling, they say, the answer is not in the powder you sniff into your system, it is not in the clear flames you pour down your throat, it is not in the nicotine you immerse yourself in, it's not in the blood you spill on your bathroom floor, it's not in that long-haired boy with the bright eyes and the promises that will shatter like thin ice. It's in you, under the acid and beyond the horrible music.

But... YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, you don't understand, you... you don't...

I don't understand.

No, My Darling

Orange Sunsets

I've always wanted a guy whose favorite color was orange. I think it's because I am so in love with the color purple (obviously), and sunsets. That doesn't make any sense, but let me explain. See, purple and orange only look good in sunsets, and sunsets are my favorite thing in the sky. Because I'm not just saying wispy, light purple and the peach tones of a sunrise; I am talking about the flash of bright, strong orange against the darkening purple sky as the day ends, the majesty of the sun's exit, how it is all bright and dark at the same time, it ushers in the night with such brilliance every day without fail.

Now to have the color orange as a favorite color isn't really a big deal, you know? I just think it would be a nice... well I just think it would be nice. It's one of those little things that don't really matter, but if it was there, it would make you a bit happier, you know? Anyway, so, yeah, the color orange, and sunsets.

I rather do like endings compared to beginnings. I mean, if you start something, it's so much work, you lay down the foundations, you build it up, revise, attach, create, add, continue slowly, oh so slowly, so that you don't mess up. It's the same with sunrises, don't you think? It's slow, and sweet, and light, then it builds up until it's high noon and the sun is blazing above and making you sweat and swear. But with endings, oh, the ENDINGS! Aren't they just marvelous? Every single thing you have done, you have worked for, culminating in a giant blast of color only to suddenly turn black. The drama, the theatricality, the beauty of it all! And you can choose! It's either bright oranges and dark purples, and Pomelo pinks with tinges of bright yellow, or dark blues with ribbons of yellows and oranges fading into the violet sky.

I like endings. I don't know what that says about me, I am pretty sure there's a psychological something or other about this, but I don't really care and I am not inclined to find out. I just like the color purple, and the way it blends so beautifully with the orange at the end of the day, that's all.

Every Speck of Gold

You know those people you meet so randomly, like after months and months of feeling gray and dull, there's suddenly this person who makes you feel alive; or at least the inklings of being alive are in your veins again. But you never noticed this person before. You've passed by this floor a hundred times, passed by that cubicle at least a dozen times more, and you never saw him/her, and all of a sudden, BAM! They're there, and it's different, somehow.

Anyway. So yeah, you've met them, right? An introduction here, a few smiles here and there. Then one day you see them, and your hands suddenly become sweaty, and you're really nervous for some reason. They say "hey," you smile back, maybe even wave, but you ask yourself after if maybe you should have SAID something, maybe you should have struck up a conversation. You dismiss the thought, remembering that, duh, why break the routine? It's not like you actually LIKE  this person, right? But, you see, as soon as you ask yourself that question, you already do.

Slowly, and unknowingly, you begin to anticipate meeting them in the corridors; you start to scan the room to see if they're there; and you start to notice your breaks seem to be in sync; and you start dressing up when you know both of you are going on duty. In short, you start putting in effort. Effort to be noticed, effort to be talked to, effort to be... more of a friend, I guess, it depends.

Then you decide, finally, to talk with them. Only, you don't talk, not... really. You pull up the work chat app, and start a conversation with them. You say hey first, of course, and then scramble for a response when they say hi back. Whatever, you just weren't ready. So you go on. This time it's outside work, you chat, you text, but you never see each other.

You find out they like horror movies, and creepy stories. They like The 1975, and RomComs, they want to travel the entire country, too. You find out they have siblings, and they'd rather stay in than go to the beach. They tell you about their plans, a bit of their dreams, and you realize you're falling in love with an idea of a person. But you're in too deep now, you can't pull yourself out.

By now you have already deduced you only have two options: run with it and hope you don't drown, or cut it out.

You choose the former. Because, hey, what have you to lose, right?

Wrong choice.

Because after months and months of feeling dead inside, you feel alive again, and that person starts to become your drug. You're dependent now, dependent on an idea. But then they don't know that. They don't know you've memorized every single speck of gold in their eyes to keep you warm at night, and you've replayed over and over every single conversation you've typed out. They don't know that the drunk texts weren't really drunk texts. They don't know they're the reason you're up at midnight just to wait for them to say Goodnight back. They don't know your heart will cave into itself when you learn from someone else that they're leaving.

But they'll never know, now, will they? Because how do you tell someone you've fallen in love with the idea of their brown eyes staring deeply into yours? How do you tell someone you've fallen in love with their sarcastic banter and perfect use of grammar and commas?

You don't. You just write it down, and write it down again. Then throw it away, burn it, bury it, hide it, whatever. Then the stories in your head, the ones you've kept because they made you laugh, made you smile, made you breathe, you put them under that rug that you love so much, along with every other story that keeps you fighting through life. You keep it there until it's covered by other stories, other golden flecks from brown eyes, other curls from other people's hair, other scars from different heartaches.

Then on rainy days, you sit by your window with a cup of tea or hot coffee, and you recall that one person who told you they hated travelling in the rain, and it will make you smile. Because their brown eyes are flashing in your mind again, and you recall every single conversation, and for a second, you feel alive again.