it's always when the anxiety is gone that i realise how bad it really had been. how crying everyday is not normal. how it's not supposed to hurt when you breath. yet somehow, when it returns (and it always does) , i forget again. i pretend life is supposed to hurt this much. that looking at beautiful things is supposed to make you wish you were dead. but it doesn't hurt now. so i'm writing this... as a reminder, for the next time. remember, it got better this time. it got better every single time and you were glad for that. it will get better this time too. it will get better and there'll be rains and clouds and poems and songs and stories and people to look at and be with. it will get better and you will remember how much you love to write when it's not to simply get rid of the pain. you will go to bed giddy with laughter and take care of your body even if it's a long way still to love it. you will sing along to your favorite songs and dance you will say i love you to all those you love and hear them say it back. you will see that it's not just darkness waiting for you in the future. that there's a dream you have. one which you love working for. there'll be words and smiles and memories and so much more. this feeling I'm feeling right now, i'm giving it to you through these words. this happiness i feel, i hope you remember this.
day 11
8:51 p. m.
i feel like i'm losing track of days. like i'm in a perpetual haze. like my body exists out of my self. like i am but a spectator in my own days. i wake up and i make my coffee. i drink it and i read. i work out and do chores. i write too. but my mind is... somewhere else. i run my fingers through my hair, unaware of both hand and hair. i place the leaf in chapter twenty-nine, not knowing what's in there. nothing feels real. no, not nothing. this pain feels real. too real. this heart that beats too fast feels real. this mind, though lost, still exists. i think therefore, i am. i must be. or i must not.
day 13
11:32 p. m.
the lost feeling after waking up from a nightmare. scared of something but not sure of what. to just sleep until it all ends. to be or not to be. to stay awake or go to sleep. to sleep. to never be.. never have been. unless in daydreams. dreams far away from now. a lighter heart forgetting these days as memories. an easier breath, exhaling out these words... no longer a part of its body. but the waiting. dear heart, the waiting. how long till i breath again?
and i'd really, really like to believe that there's someone out there reading all this. reading this and rooting for me to make it through this. because if not, then what am i even doing here?
'i would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky
i would like to pray'
i have been strangers with my words for a while now. my words, the ones that helped me let go of my pain, helped me breathe. but some things you can't let go of. you can only bury them so deep in that you won't ever have to think about them again.
some days, i think i would be alright if everyone i've ever loved, ever held close to my heart would leave me. i tell myself it wouldn't hurt. that it would be for the best. some days, i forget how my heart feels everything too much, how it can't help but hurt.
i look back at the past few months and i try to detach myself from the pain, the grief. i would go for days and weeks without thinking about it, without shedding a tear. until one day, a random thought, a reminder, a realization. they're gone. and it would hit all over again. a blinding pain that leaves me gasping for breath.
when i was a child, i would pray to god to take my pain away. it didn't make sense for me to have to feel all that. god never did, and i am no longer a child. i haven't prayed in a very long time, it makes me angry.
when grief comes knocking at my door, i turn the volume up and pretend i don't hear. i pretend it's fine until the walls start to crumble around me and grief barges in through the broken door. it holds my face in it's hands, looks into the eyes that refuse to shed it's tears and tells me, "it won't be the end of the world if you feel"
maybe not the world, but it would be my end. for how will i ever stop, once i start?
something something going through the streets of the town my mother grew up in. she grew up here. she was a child here. i am no longer a child. time passes so quickly. stuck in the traffic here, time doesn't seem to be passing at all. i hope the journey takes forever. i hope we never reach. it won't be the same as last time. this town was never mine so why does it still feel like home. one day, I'll come here for the last time. how will i gather everything in my little suitcase? all that sweetness, it turns sour when you take it back.
there was my mother
i promised to never let her cry
the first one i broke
there were my friends
ones i promised to stay with forever
i broke them anyway
there were my words
all the 'iloveyou's and 'imissyou's and 'i'mtrying's
i promised to say them
only when i meant them
i broke those too
there were my tears
i promised to shed them only on those
who deserved them
well, when have i ever kept my promises?
then there was you
asking me to promise
and i'm gonna break this too
i promise anyway
day 19
9:58 p. m.
this ends for us today, stranger. for i loved you, but i hated this too.
you came back today. you asked if i forgot to laugh while you were away. maybe i did. but i won't tell you. you asked how long it's been since you left and i pretended i hadn't been counting each day, writing out all these days to make their passing a little more bearable. but you're here now. it's going to be okay.
to the stranger reading this, i'm glad you were here. glad i wasn't alone. but here is where we part. for now.
goodbye
day 6
12:05 p. m.
where do all these tears come from. where do they keep coming from. don't you see i have else to do? don't you see nobody has the time to be in pain?
day 7
10:40 p. m.
it's october now. don't you remember the poems? don't you remember the quotes? you can't be sad in october. it's for happiness and sunshine and smiles. but here's the longing, the missing. a thousand miles made of pain.
maybe one day the world won't hurt so much. maybe one day these words won't be a way to make sense out of all this. maybe one day.
i hope i stay for that day.
day 2
9:19 a. m.
one of these days, you're gonna get used to being the last to walk up those stairs at night and the first to walk down them in the morning. that weird morning haze won't look so unfamiliar to your eyes. that first buzz of electricity won't sound so ominous. you won't need to blast lorde at full volume to drown out the silence. but not today. not so soon.
maybe being strong is all about pretending. i can't think of it otherwise. how else do they hold each other up? how else do i look you in the eye and tell you it'll be alright?
reminder to self: just accept that alarms aren't for you. and maybe... just maybe, crying to lorde isn't such a bad idea.