Her Fantasy

She lived in a fantasy, and it wasn’t hard to see. She was happy, as happy as one can be. It wasn’t her mistake, no, it was her only way not to break. However, many wondered how this could be. She smiled even when her heart skipped a beat, even when the heat didn’t want to let her breathe. It was her fantasy that allowed her to be this free, to be anything she wanted to be, for it promised great things. Darkness she did not see, maybe that her mistake could be, maybe she just chose to see what she wanted to see. Or perhaps she wasn’t free; she wasn’t happy with the things she had seen. Perhaps it was only a mask, a mask that no one, not even she, could see. It’d be too painful, too painful not to believe, too painful to see the world as it is. Maybe she let herself believe that it was all just a bad dream, for there is no real pain if we play pretend. There is no real heartbreak if our eyes turn away. For she did not cry, no, she did not feel sadness in her heart. She could not break even if she tried; not a single tear could fall from her pretty little eyes. She was strong, yet weak at the same time, for she had not yet seen that she had been broken all along.

She fell so hard it made her fall apart, so many pieces left to pick up, but then she gave up, for it was her fantasy that taught her not to walk, instead to dream of what she could have done. “Don’t get up, don’t wake up, it will go slowly, then open your eyes and everything will be gone.” She thought she had already woken up, but she had been sleeping all this time. She lied while her mind played the fantasy she so desperately wanted to have. Now, what would happen if she decided to wake up? What would happen if she decided that she didn’t want anything to be gone?

Many say, “You don’t know what you have until it is gone”, but how true is that? How true is it that there will be no mark? Being gone implies that there is no mark, no trace, left behind. She has these thoughts in her mind, wondering if everything was worth the lie, if she was truly as free as a butterfly. Deep down, she knew that losing those pieces meant losing herself. For it was not attention she was seeking, not happiness she was craving, not love she was lacking; it was peace she was desiring. It was peace she wanted; maybe she thought, “attention can only get you so far, happiness can only do so much, love can only save you for so long, but peace provides all of that and more.” There is no love where there is no peace, there is no happiness where there is no peace, there is no great attention where there is no peace.

It was her fantasy that made her realize all of this; it helped her see all the great things she would have missed. It was not her lack of understanding but her lack of willingness, for she knew who she was all this time, but did not want to say out loud, not because she was afraid but because she knew that many people would go away. Though it all changed when she decided it was only she who had to stay.