Still you.

The moon shines bright as longing begins to afflict me again.

I turn on the light to take down the dream of you and me.

Can I resurrect the parts of me that died when you left?

My darling, how can I turn back time?

I loved you at my prime.

It seems that my heart has peaked.

My soul is still yours.

It’s still your warmth I seek.

My freckled lover, how do we start over?

Life has been unkind to the love still brewing inside.

How do I unlove you?

How does miles of skin unlearn your touch?

Today, there is no more you and I.

Tomorrow, I will keep living a lie.

Advertisements

Don’t mind me.

Sometimes, my brain forgets to remind my lungs to breathe in my sleep. WebMD calls it sleep apnea. I call it, “my body’s way of fighting a part of it that wants to die.” I’m not suicidal… not all the time. Maybe not even at all. My soul kicks and screams at all my demons just to keep me sane… alive.

 

I actually want to stay alive. I want to live long enough to see the good I could become. I want to live long enough to see if it’s possible to change my mind about having kids. I want to live long enough to meet the one. I want to live long enough to get to a size 2 (Stop judging me. Hey, I want to live long enough to see that, too.)

 

To be honest, I’m not terribly suicidal. I’m not brave enough to kill myself. And since I’ve seen what suicide does to a family, I’m not about to let mine go through that a second time. Is it even brave to commit suicide? Or is it cowardice? Do I truly want to stay alive? Or, am I just overwhelmingly curious? Curious enough to want to find out what tomorrow looks like.

 

To be honest, I don’t really know. It’s just that sometimes it feels better not to exist… at least temporarily. “Is this medical or existential?”, I ask myself as I write this at 4am, a few hours after January 1st, 2018. I’m not even sure why I’m thinking about death at this hour. Maybe because I can’t go back to sleep after my brain forgot to let me breathe again. Maybe because I remember my brother. Maybe because I just feel small and helpless and alone.

 

Who knows? What I do know for sure is that I still want to see another day. My people shouldn’t really worry about me. I want to live long enough to see if I could be happy… finally.

Transient faith.

My faith is fleeting.

She’s a poetic line you thought about

amidst the drowning comforts of sleep

that you couldn’t remember anymore;

if only you had written it down.

Now, it seems like I couldn’t let my guard down

because if I did, even slumber would betray me,

take something away from me.

My strength is one big sham.

I am impregnable and bright on the outside.

I am fragile and dull underneath.

That’s one truth I don’t like to admit.

Because my faith is one fickle muse —

beautiful,

relatable,

makes you feel extra special and then…

gone.

Don’t take your eyes off her.

Don’t even blink.

She’s here and then…

gone.

Want a glimpse of of her?

Look to my rituals —

they’re my muffled prayers;

they’re the silent songs I sing to her.

My faith asks the important questions:

Why would you stain the alabaster

when it held perfectly to the light?

Why would you scar your wrists

when the stencils of your veins on them are the kind of art

Van Gogh would cut off his other ear for?

Why would you let go of this life

and miss out on all your possibilities?

Why would you deprive yourself the ability to dream?

You can be whoever you want to be in dreams.

And just like that,

it all feels like I am breathing through

a clogged nostril for the first time.

She does that…

every time.

I want her to stay longer,

to hold me forever.

But she leaves before twilight.

So I scour the night for her again…

every time.

Pen to paper.

Write to remember. Remember not to build homes out of the fleeting. Remember that settling for measly crumbs will only lead you to the gingerbread house in the woods. Remember that when people tell you they’re incapable of change, it’s probably best to believe them. Remember that the smell of smoke means a burning castle, or a broken, freckled prince holding a metaphorical cigarette, saying “If I cut these wrists, would they bleed the blackest ink? Would they leave a perpetual stain on the threads of the tapestry woven by these unsteady hands?”

Write to forget. Forget the nightmares that anchor you to the ground. Forget how every inch of skin ached at the sight of a former lover. Forget the lies that you have mistaken for the truth. Forget how vile this world can be for allowing the loneliness to take up space on the empty side of your bed.

Set those thoughts to paper, write it all out. Let your pen bleed what your mouth refuses to speak. Set in longhand the pain that cripples the heart, clouds the mind, weakens the soul. Write down the past and leave it there. Write down affirmations that let the light in. Darkness is a mere specter. It’s an abstract abyss. It will only wield power if you let it. Photosynthesis that shit. Write down the words: I am enough.

I am enough.

Just friends.

We could be lovers,

but we’re not.

We lull sweet adulation to sleep.

There may never be a future here,

or is there?

For now,

let’s not give in to the deep.

I am neither yours,

nor are you mine.

Yet our souls make love to each other like martyrs,

like vagabonds in reverie.

I’ve studied your freckles like the constellations a thousand times,

how they dance in my mind.

Fall victim to my yearning heart.

Seep into the textures of me.

Rapture.

When the soul has known darkness like art, silence swells up until it fills the lungs. All you will hear is the euphony of your teardrops and the crashing of your heart. Our folly is love, its fodder is touch. We are starving with mouths filled to the corners of our lips, yet the words will never reach the surface. Speak now, hold me now, I beg, lest we give in to the rapture of the deep.

Look this way, my wicked.

On evenings when the warm effervescent glow of the moon gilded the ground,

your skin glitters,

your eyes dance with sliver streaks of moonbeams and,

dare I say, fairy dust.

 

I am a shell filled with maybes and what ifs.

My skin screams protests that seek your quiet.

Your presence satiates this black hole of a heart —

each touch is a blanket of carnal promises so sweet,

I want to believe in the magic.

 

You were my everything once,

if everything meant kisses that burned into the soul.

You were the air that filled my lungs,

if air meant the hope of tomorrows and forevers.

 

I still yearn for you, my wicked.

Despite this tempestuous love affair,

I still rise from the wreckage you left in your wake

arms wide open, nose bloody.

 

Dearest fickle muse, heal me.

Touch me.

Move to the skips of my heartbeats.

Sway to the rhythm of my honesty.

 

This is what you came for, isn’t it?

This is the ever-after to your once-upon-a-time.

This.

This is it.

Just look my way.

Look my way once more.