I sit on the bathroom floor with the shower harshly poking my nape and running down my back, but the tears flowing out my eyes were more like a pointed glass scraping slowly on the thin layer of tissue in my face. It was so cold, so casually cruel. But it still doesn’t compare to what happened tonight because words, couldn’t even cope with the pain right now. Pain, imagine how a four-letter word could bear so much, and how it demands to be felt so immensely. Pain, tonight, is indeed felt alright, but everything is still stuck in my head—the infrangible pride, the wheel of disputation that continuously go round, the unorthodox relationship, the imperceptible you—and it’s making me crazed. I was starting to lose control again. I was scared, because aside from losing you, in the name of being honest, I was losing myself again too.
My last energy has been consumed by that shower so I did nothing but lay on the carpet under my bed. I stared at the black paint that was peeling off my bed’s metal frame thinking what I can do to get me out of my mind. Next thing I tried to do was read a book but everything was just clouded inside me, I couldn’t even manage to make my eyes focus. And there goes the feeling of sting again, spreading through my body like it’s taking away my control. I felt the walls of my room crashing in on me so I turned myself into a burrito using my blanket and closed my eyes.
You don’t even how much the weight of your words and action have buried me under the soil. There wasn’t even a plaque to figure out where you had left me. For days, I tried to keep a hold of the surface in the hopes of you coming back but one day, the rain poured down heavily. It soaked my whole body and the weight was pulling me in deeper. Determined to keep hold of the surface, I wrapped myself into the roots I saw growing out of the soil hoping it would lessen the weight I carry, but little did I know, they were not roots but porcupine tomato branches. My perception has started to fail me, I tried to looked up in the sky as each spike pierces into my skin. I felt like I was hugged but the comfort wore off immediately as the sharp ends locked a centimeter deep in my epidermis. I realized that yet again, I added pain to my pain; do you know how some people cope with pain by inflicting more pain?
I was in agony and eventually, I got tired. I lost the willingness I used to have, so slowly, I let go. I still looked up in the sky as I fall deeper into my grave. I succumb into the darkness. The dirt started to become my warmth; the four sides of earth has become my home. And I stayed still, at the comforts of my own self, because I have always been used to being alone. I got tired, and I got numb. The rain didn’t bother me anymore, the hooting of whatever animal at night didn’t scare me anymore, and the hopes of you coming back never appeared in my mind anymore. I found my space, and I’ve learned to dwell in it fittingly.
Sometimes there would be light—people checking in, people trying to see if I was still there, but mostly people that’s plainly just giving in to their urge of looking down. There were ones who were real though, or maybe one, to be exact. The sincerity and care were so genuine that it felt surreal. I don’t even flinch, it’s not that I don’t want to get shined on anymore but unless it’s moonlight, I forbid myself from giving even the slightest hint of attention. I guess that’s what comes with numbness, you just never feel anymore for anything or anyone.
It’s been a month now, and I am still at the graveyard; I am still buried. I never heard from anyone anymore, I never heard from you. Yes, surprisingly, I remembered you today just like it was yesterday. The only difference is that: (1) I didn’t feel anything anymore, the numbness was still there evidently, and (2) it was not a train of obscure thoughts. I let out a deep sigh of relief. I only thought of asking you one question if ever we’re astounded to meet again. That one question, just between us, tell me honestly, did it maim you too?
I was awoken by the ice-cold haste of wind that made its way in through the only window in my room. Realizing it was raining heavily too, I went up to close the window pane, but before I did, I raised my hand and steadily push it out of the window. I was appalled by how benumbed I was from the dream earlier; I didn’t even realize I had the urge to try and feel something. A few drops of rain immediately touched my skin as if it has been longing for a place to alight ever since. It was glacial, but calm, in a way. I looked up to the nimbus clouds imagining how long it had to carry all the heaviness before letting it go into precipitation. I wondered, what if I held onto the heaviness for much longer too, could there have been any difference?
☾ oliviatotsuki
