the sorrows inside, i swallow
the sorrows inside
the sun was shining brighter than ever at noon. this morning, my therapist told me to focus on the way it shines slim, curved lines of yellow on the pristine pebbles along the street as i walked back home. i was doing a good job at it, if you don’t count a few minor distractions like a swaying hyacinth and a snowy husky dog that served a pang to my head as a forceful reminder of how much you loved them. but i left it there. it should be there, and shouldn’t have travelled down, stuck at the base of my throat before sending a drastic fall. but it did, when i crawled on the crimson bench alone against the white walls of a shelter that i was supposed to spend dreamlike moments in with you. but it did, tugging a tumultuous crash to my aching heart. my heart pulsed once. badump. medicinal chemicals overlapping hints of metallic blood filling my nostrils. twice. badump. cardboard boxes weighing on my hands nearly as heavy as my heart was, with no one to share. thrice. badump. fingers smearing red paints on this very bench that would definitely illicit disapproving sighs from you because red on white stands glaring to the eyes, and i might’ve considered changing it just to suit your tastes if you were here. but ifs are never realities. this reality takes shape in the day you met me again, with a foreign look, almost a sick politeness in place of that affection you once held in your eyes as your gaze melted into mine, preserved for me when it was just us two.
after that fated meeting, i indulged in my overwhelming moods a little. i painted this bench red when i decided on dedicating it to be all that my bleeding heart is, for it shows off shades of uneven reds, wounded with imperfections and lonesome against the white walls of our dreams behind my back. still, by allowing constant turns of my head, i’ve been associating you with everything around me. it’s an act that should be forbidden if i want you and i to truly move on. then again, if isn’t this reality. i want to feel sorry for myself, this time, for being unable to make that if into a reality.
the shade casts a looming sorrow on my hunched figure: your heart is obliviously white to an incomplete crimson that is mine.
i swallow
before you came, i was tied to a desk and a chair by the binds of basic needs and oftentimes wants when i got a raise. it was a mere routine to arrive at work on time, a severe lack of sleep forcefully shoved away in my eye sockets, only to return home countless hours later with body-crumbling exhaustion from overtime. but no matter how tired or worn out i was and no matter how much workload there was, i didn’t shed a single tear, because i knew all too well that such was life. or so i thought. a true life wasn’t a routine. to live and to exist bore stark differences. it wasn’t often that i found myself living, until i met you.
cooperation was what i always tried to achieve in group projects, in fear of being frowned upon with scornful gazes and disdain for not trying hard enough. that fear took my teammates into account, but in competitions, it overwhelmed me to an extent of completely disregarding rivalry. that left me unaware to those prying eyes that were waiting for the right moment to flip the tables. alas, what good was it to put my heart and soul to our first project when all of my hard work was for naught after the opposing team sabotaged the files that i was in charge of?
my tear-stained face hit face-first against the messy blankets under a tilted pillow that i attempted to lower the back of my head on. all the strength i had left after work was already used up for dragging myself up the bed. this was one of those moments that i felt like i could truly live. because it was hard to breathe when i laid this way that i realised, one by one, how the only thing that wetted my cheeks at this hour used to be a cold energy drink, how amazing it would be to be able to breathe when i suffocated, and how you would’ve rubbed soothing circles on my back, wordlessly yet affirmatively lying by my side as i bury my face in your collarbones.
no, no. i can’t afford to think of you right now. not when you just peered down at me, all disgusted and utterly hateful as if i was nothing but dirt. oh, please, if only you saw those foxes snooping around like i did, you would be standing my ground and supporting me… like before. you always would have. you’d have believed in my pleas unlike the others... those scoundrels were no different with their ignorance, never failing to put everything on my shoulders and then shun me for getting tired. was it on me to prevent the selfishness in human’s nature that was so vulgarly rooted to the corrupted core? damn them all to hell!
i couldn’t even find ways to make it up to you because how on earth could i when you wouldn’t even spare a glance my way? frustration pooled a helpless desire in my guts to thrash around or punch just an ounce of pain out, but my limbs had reached their limits, so i cried harder instead, though my eyes were starting to sting painfully. i hated the wet burn that my hot tears made on these freezing cheeks, smeared all over my pillow and almost biting away at my face from how it hurt so badly, it hurt being misunderstood by you so much that i could die. but this excruciating pain told me that i was still alive.
because feeling pain was what it meant to be alive, i’d rather that night, after swallowing the hurt whole, i’d fall into a sleep that i would never wake up from.
