Eleven Years
The dark box of my heart is on the table, and it overflows with unspent love & energy. I’ve been alone, wondering why, why she and I ended up destroying each other by being together. Why I always try finding happiness in the same place I lost it. Why I must continue to make splendid art with all the broken pieces of my body. Among the many things I do not know, it’s this dark box I return to the most. The dark arterial streets lined with grief, and organs that rupture at any sudden thought of her — I am out of my mind, spilling everywhere. What would it take to keep my heart happy or beating?
My soul is stark naked, but her thin, origami love keeps me alive. There are days where I find myself drenched in the rain thinking of where I went wrong. In the midst of gentle pourings, I think how I can do better when I meet the next one, or if I must redo my definition of “the one” again and again. Like dealing with sudden lapses of melancholy and nostalgia. Like a push and pull of something so heart-warming and then a sudden emptiness. What’s my heart telling me? Does it want to live or love? Can it do both?
I don’t know what I am feeling — I don’t think I ever will.
I haven’t been able to write poetry, and that was the most beautiful thing about me. Because my tears have said all that needed to be said and all that is left is a catacomb of silence. No ink or war or prayer can express my sorrows. If, one day I am ready, it would have to be with spilled, red blood. Because my skin is so fucking cold. Because the bones left of her and I in August have become the bones of September and I am stuck here with the same misery replaying.
It would be easy to run and cut my life away. I could jump and shatter my bones in such a breathtaking way — it would be like I was in love, almost. The way I’m living my life now, I am Frankenstein, stitching myself together with more relationships, more sex, more experiments, more. Anything to make me feel like our dead love is still alive. She is a ghost and memory now, and if I consume the memories, it will not just be the sweet nectar of the life we shared, but the entire orchard. The dusty skin, reminding me of the dust of her absence, and the thorny flowerbed we sleep on. This is said to be romantic. The joy of her roses to the grief dripping from the thorns that hold us together. It’s ripping me apart.
How do I tell her I miss her in a way that will make her heart ache like mine?
I have tasted many oceans in search of answers but nothing is there. There is so much I want to keep of her; the dead cells and souls, the flower-draped dresses and blouses. But the places I go are all veiled in some purposeful mist like a big eraser wiping away all my beautiful mistakes. I think this is my body telling me to stop, for clarity and sanity. I’ve been a fugitive of my own past for far too long, and the gulf between me and my body has grown larger. I am not me. She is not me. But I think I am ready to close this gap in my soul. I am ready to leave with a boat built not of weak resolve, but of sturdy wood and fresh green paint. I am ready to live and love again.
Now, I am washed up on some limestone with sea-drenched skin glistening. This sensation isn’t a breath of fresh air, but of warm sunlight on my cold, reptilian skin. It’s the refreshing taste of learning to move on. The splendidness of the world to melt away the cold eternities within me. Once, my world had been too dark to dream in color. But where I lay now, I can see flowers bloom at midnight. I can see birds fly in gray skies and they look very close to looking like the sunrise. Sometimes, it takes the most wounded of wings, the most broken of things, to notice how strongly our heart beats, how precious the flight is. I am a living poet now, fluttering with enough words to fill a broken heart.
Photo by Iqx Azmi
