Category: Prose

And just like that, out of nowhere, I smell your cologne. I feel it unearth all the memories I tried so hard to bury. You’re long gone but I can feel it wrap around me, trapping me in my unwanted recollection of you.

It seems that I can’t erase you from my memory or my senses. And as I stay there, seemingly indifferent, I feel a slight throb in my chest; a dull and barely noticeable pain. And with that comes the reminder that I still miss you, even though I know that I mean nothing more to you than the girl who’s affections you didn’t want.

I no longer yell when I’m angry because I’ve seen how it affects people. Now, I just keep my anger within silence with a seal on my lips, but now I wonder if that is any better…

Is the storm that announces it’s arrival before it hits better or worse than the silent storm that hits without any forewarning?

When all you do is destroy yourself with bad habits, there’s no one you can blame but yourself.

I wrote you a letter but I can’t remember the details of it. I have gaps in my memory, pockets of space of things I cannot remember. What worries me is that the days are passing me by and I can’t remember anything. The days are merging and blurring into one another and if I can’t recall a single thing at all, I know that things are going to get worse because when I’m not able to remember everything or even anything, it means that I’m going to fuck up. I’m slipping and losing my grip on reality. When that happens, I’m going to lose my grip on who I am and what I mean as a person; when I forget my self-worth and begin to define myself by my failures, I’ll self-destruct.

And I don’t want you to be there when it happens; I don’t want you to see me like that. I don’t want to fuck you up more than I already have. And it’s a matter of when, not if. It will happen, and when it does… just know that I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.

There are times when my own writing makes little sense to me but makes perfect sense to others. As a writer, I aspire to continue to write pieces that will either make sense to me as its creator or make sense to others as its audience.

I feel like that’s why I write – to either reach an understanding for myself or help someone understand themselves better.

I think that the first step to healing is actually admitting that there’s a problem to begin with.

The second step would be talking about it with someone that you trust – wounds only begin to heal when you expose it to air.

The third step would be to get help.

The last step is to believe that you can, and so you will.

The world we live in is one that is being ravaged by war, hunger, disease and corruption. Humanity is in a fragile state of mind. Though we may be human, we are not humane to one another.

You’d think that after going through so much together, having faced many a struggle and their consequences as well as our evolution, we would have learned to love one another by now.

But that is clearly not the case.

We wanted order but instead we created disharmony. We allowed ourselves to be segregated by religion, identified by the colour of our skin and separated by the people we love. We fought wars in the name of peace, but was that ever the intention?

We fight not in the name of justice, but to prove that we are the ones who are right.

Were we not born to live and love? If you believe that we are, how can we keep living a life devoid of love? How can we stand by as our brothers and sisters get destroyed by those savages who are less than human. Why do we nitpick who gets to live and who gets to die? Who are we to decide whether or not that person deserves the hatred coming their way? What are we doing restricting our love and our forgiveness to individuals who we believe share our ideals?

We build borders in the name of protection, but really that’s just an excuse for our ignorance. How can we learn when we isolate ourselves? We arm ourselves with weapons in the name of defence, but really that’s just an excuse to condone the destruction of one another.

How can we live in peace when we constantly instigate violence?

I created a universe with just my words – with a pen in my hand and ink stains on paper.

If you can’t appreciate it – the patterns of my stars, the positions of my planets and the placement of my meteors – then, I don’t think you would be able to appreciate me.

For I am, my words. To love me, is to love words as much I do.

And there she goes again. Retreating back into the world that is her mind. Wandering the Lands of Thoughts – where the endless Sky of Possibilities meet the Ocean of Doubts; where she could potentially get lost in the Forests of Fear or play in the Fields of Daydreams. She could climb the Mountains of Challenges or live in her Palace of Imagination.

I watch as she disappears into the corners of her mind and wonder in which direction she’ll wander.

But when I look into her eyes, I do not see the Wanderer. Instead, I see her world falling to pieces.

I walk up to you and hug you, tell you that I love you. I’m about to tell you everything that had been bothering for the longest of time.

I’m not happy with my life.
I hate how I’m always dropping short and can’t seem to do anything about it.
I’m not smart enough to go on.
I feel suffocated by expectations.
I’m struggling in more ways than one.
I’m tearing myself apart.
I can’t eat without feeling upset.
I can’t study without feeling angry.
I can’t sleep without feeling worried.
I can’t smile without it feeling forced.
I’m depressed and I’m trying.
I’m trying so hard to stay alive in this world that I hate.
I hate my life.
I hate my body.
I hate myself.
I want to die.
I can’t deal with this emptiness anymore.
I don’t want to deal with this endless pit of sadness.
I’m drowning and I just want to sink to the bottom.
I just want it to stop.
I want to stop hurting myself, but I can’t.
I want to stop hurting people, but I do.
I want it all to go away and leave me alone.
I just want to die…

But I don’t tell you any of this. The words are there and I taste it – the bitter taste of self-loathing and resentment. The words are there but I won’t let them go. I clutch at them, desperately. I choke as I swallow them back down, but I do so quietly.

Because the last thing I want to do is ruin your happiness by shattering this facade that I created.

Because I don’t want to be the one who steals that smile of yours.