#wasistunendlichkeit

[wasistunendlichkeit]

Echoleer

Absence of noise, a void room left behind torn apart skin, closed again with a dozen stitches. I am catching my breath after a longer death. “You’re okay,” whispers a voice I’m too unconscious to identify, but her soft eyes keep me awake, alive, steady. I know these eyes.

Painkillers leave everything in a white noise while daylight fades out in the sky above me. It gets too much, euphoria, fear, relieve washes over me until a bunch of undistinguished feelings kick me off my feet again. I break, in the lonely silence and coldness of an ICU room.

I didn’t realize how scared I was until I recognized a familiar feeling of distance and unsafety.

His soft voice, his familiar smile in a dim lit room is a reminder of all the warm lights, colors I’m going to see in this life. Love is in the smallest of gestures. He treated an ache he couldn’t even see. He gave me hope, something to look forward to. For a few fleeting moments the darkness in my room is brightened by laughter, colorful sparks. It doesn’t matter if I’m the only one seeing them. Trying counts for something, it has to. It’s enough if I could give back some of the warmth you made me feel.

I’m alive. I’m okay. I crash at my own feet, in front of my own heart. Here’s a home for me. I made it. There’s a heart inside this ribcage and it doesn’t yearn anymore. There’s blood pumping through my veins, keeping me alive to feel magic. I breathe oxygen and stardust. This life is mine. I’m not letting any of it go.

The scar on my throat is just another reminder of what I survived.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

“Es ist kalt hier

am Ende der Welt”, sage ich. Sie lacht. “Wo sind wir?” “Das”, sagt sie und schließt mit einer Armbewegung alles von uns bis zum Horizont ein, “ist dein innerer Norden.” Unendliche Weiten voll Schnee und Eis, so weit das Auge reicht. In der Ferne ragen Steilwände auf, bedrohlich dunkel heben sie sich von der weißen Unschuld ab. “Was ist das?” Ihre kleine Hand klammert sich fester an meinen Arm. “Dahin gehe ich nicht”, flüstert sie “das sind die Schluchten.” Ich richte meinen Blick auf die Schluchten und weiß was ich tun muss. “Heute ist der Tag an dem wir dorthin gehen.”

“Ich habe Angst”, höre ich sie leise neben mir in der Dunkelheit sagen. Wir haben die “Schluchten”, wie sie sie nennt, gerade erst betreten. Eigentlich ist es eine Höhle, keine Schlucht. Es sind auch nicht mehrere, es ist nur diese eine. Ich weiß, was ich dort finden werde. Aber hier geht es nicht nur um mich, es geht um sie. Das kleine Mädchen an meiner Hand, etwa 5 Jahre alt, mit wippenden Flechtezöpfen und einer kleinen roten Nasenspitze, selbst im Winter umgeben von Sommersprossen, was endlich nachhause muss. Ich bücke mich zu ihr hinunter und rücke ihre Mütze ordentlich über ihre kalten Ohren. “Ich weiß, dass du Angst hast, Anni. Es ist dunkel und kalt, aber ich bin da. Ich halte dich fest, und wenn du einfach bei mir bleibst, dann wird dir nichts geschehen. Ich werde dich nicht loslassen. Niemals. Vertraust du mir?” Ich schlucke die Tränen hinunter die mir kommen. Das ist nicht das erste Mal, dass ich versuche sie mit mir zu nehmen, raus aus der Kälte und Dunkelheit, mit in den Sommer. Ich hab es nur niemals vorher geschafft. Der Weg ist so weit, am Anfang hab ich sie losgelassen und in der Dunkelheit ewig nicht wiedergefunden, später ist sie mir weggelaufen und hat woanders ein Zuhause gesucht, dann hab ich mich mit ihr verlaufen, zwischendurch hab ich aufgehört es zu versuchen. Aber das ist ihr egal. Für sie zählt nur der Versuch, nicht das Scheitern, das verzeiht sie einfach. Sie glaubt jedes Mal an uns. Sie nickt. “Ich vertraue dir, Anna.”

Ich hebe sie hoch. Diesmal vertrau ich mir auch. Ich kenne den Weg. “Wohin gehen wir eigentlich?” fragt sie. “Nachhause”, antworte ich. “Endlich”, seufzt sie erleichtert, schlingt ihre Arme um meinen Hals und kuschelt sich an mich. “Du musst keine Angst haben.” Diesmal bin ich es, die flüstert. “Hab ich nicht”, flüstert sie zurück. “Du bist ja da. Aber du hast Angst. Das musst du aber gar nicht, weil ich auch keine hab. Ich weiß, dass du das kannst.” Ich hauche ihr einen Kuss auf die Stirn. “Danke”, murmle ich.

Dann laufe ich los.

Das Kind in mir hat eine Heimat, und das bin ich. Ich werde es immer sein.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

You are amazing and great. And you’re not for me.

For the first time I will not allow myself to lose me over that. I’ll go on without having touched you in the way you touched me. And I will not live like I have not known you. I will remember you fondly and someday I’ll think of your face for the last time and it’ll be fine.

You meant something to me, you mean something to me. But you don’t mean THAT to me. You cannot. And it’s fine that you don’t.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

L'appel du vide

Life is lonely but peaceful. It's a little less lonely when you're right behind me in the office. It's a little more peaceful when you're rolling your cigarette. It's a little more lonely when you're leaving the room to go smoke it.

I'm trying really hard not to fall in love with the sound of your fingers rolling the paper. I'm trying really hard not to fall in love with your soft smile. I cannot help but look forward to the moment you enter the room, to the moment you're turning in your chair to look at me when I say your name. I don't want to fall for an idea, I'm trying to not make you up. You're a stranger but you don't feel like one. The way your name rolls off my tongue feels too familiar. I don't want more than seeing you smile at me again next week, no matter if it’s followed by “good morning” or “see you tomorrow” or “see you next week”. And I wonder if that's already too much to want. I'm not detached. I have never truly been. I have always craved connection, intimacy, familiarity, more than anything. I am still learning that these feelings are not only found in romantic relationships. Contentment can also be to sit in the office under the roof, with open windows, rain falling, your favorite co-worker standing up right behind you to watch the rain out of the window. Doesn't sharing a connection always mean more than how long it will last?

I'm trying to fill the silence all with myself. I'm trying to leave space. Loneliness always sneaks in through the window, that I leave always open. Closed spaces suffocate me. Vastness always makes me feel too small. I have so much space left inside of me. Time is running too fast, all of these little moments always lost inside the endless moving forward. But if I don't put my heart in this, where should I put it then? If I don't love this life, what do I do then?

[wasistunendlichkeit]

I want to be soft. I want to be so soft I melt into sunlight and warm touches. I want to radiate light and warmth for the life of it. I want to give. I want to return the comfort and love I experienced.

I’m so tired of pretending there’s anything else except love and kindness inside of my heart.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

I have never known how it feels to be loved and I barely know the warmth of someone caring. So please forgive me if I fall in love with strangers from the coffee shop, flashing me reassuring smiles on the days they notice to be hard on me. Forgive me for falling in love with the nurse at the hospital running her hands over my arms, carefully, as if she’s scared to hurt me, checking for bruises. Forgive me for loving the guy from radiology, assuring me that I’ll be okay, he’s right over there and hears every word I say, if I need help or feel uncomfortable I can just ask him to come and he will. Forgive me for falling for the doctor from the emergency room, with his kind eyes and soft smiles, with his warm hands, wiping the blood from my neck even if I could have done it myself, with his comforting voice, apologizing for having to hurt me in order to treat me, for cutting the plaster so my hair won’t be caught in it, for leaving his hand on my shoulder, asking if I’m okay, when they had to stitch me up because he caught my pained expression. 

Forgive me for being so used to the cold, that I fall for every drop of warmth shown to me. 

Forgive me for not being able to endure coldness and distance another second anymore after melting into softness, after tasting warmth instead of harsh iron, after stumbling into caring arms that didn’t let me fall.

Forgive me for leaving you. Forgive me for leaving our distance in finding of love hiding everywhere else but with you.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

I still love you. Even if I don’t answer your last message and you cross the streets to avoid me. 

Sometimes love lies only in the distance between.

[wasistunendlichkeit]

24

Sometimes I forget that I’m still the girl that got bullied from kindergarden all the way through until eleventh grade, until she was too broken down for it to be fun anymore. Sometimes I forget that I’m still the girl that was sexually harassed on the regular since she was sixteen. Sometimes I forget that I’m still the girl that was touched against her will. Sometimes I forget that I’m still the girl whose boundaries were violated until she gave up on them. Sometimes I forget that I’m still the girl nobody cared for. 

Sometimes I forget I’m still the girl 

all 

of

you

left

behind.

Sometimes I remember that I carry all of this with me, wherever I may go. Sometimes I conciously remember that I refused to leave myself behind, that I carry myself.

Oftentimes I see me carrying myself so well, I forget the heaviness of my own burden.