enough to be my tipping point

A letter, to you --

The time on my phone reads 1:04AM, its bright white digital display of numbers searing into the back of my mind as my tired eyes struggle to read it. Even the smallest task I struggle to perform takes an effort that brings more ache to everything that I already am. I know I shouldn’t still be out this late, but the wooden park bench that calls me a friend gets lonely around this hour, and sometimes I just need to be alone with someone who will care and that’s how it usually goes down. The bench is especially cold tonight after the new rainfall that left glistening drops on its now-rusty metal edges, but I don’t mind because I’m too numb to feel the cold and even if I did I’d just pull my black cotton hoodie closer and hope that I’d stay warm enough to make it a little longer. Somehow I doubt that would help ease the icy feeling inside that sends shivers down my skin whenever I’m trapped in sickening realities that I just want to escape.

I’m heartsick and I know it. I’m sick of hearing shouting downstairs drone on over and again until it’s stuck in my head when I can do nothing about it. I’m sick of staying up late because I’m too scared to fall asleep for fear that I’ll die once more in my dreams and you’ll do nothing about it. I’m sick of crimson-tinted lenses that make me tremble but I can’t seem to give up living through. If I still had the strength enough to speak, I’d whisper to you my last words or maybe they’ll die on my lips along with my heart and you’ll find them and cry yourself to sleep beside my lifeless body and wish that you had cared before now. Then those words will torture you forever as they play through your mind and haunt your dreams until you can recite them from memory and decide to carve them into your skin, because now you know you were both my reason to live and to die.

It’s a lovely moonlit night in the park but I don’t think it’s quite time for me to leave yet, because my heart still feels restless and I’m not sure that I’d make it home if I left now, if I can really call anywhere home at this point. I guess that I’m just wandering along waiting for something magnificent to happen but somehow deep down I know that nothing will. I’m tired of being the strong one who’s expected to save everyone else because I know that I’m not strong enough anymore and for once I just want to be the one that’s too weak to go on and then maybe you’ll decide to save me instead. But for now I’ll just count the streetlights as they blink and hopelessly try to stay awake to brighten the night until the dawn rises to wake the rest of the world while it lies oblivious to my painful contemplations. Everything is at peace but me because there’s an endless storm that rages no matter how hard I try to settle it and now I think I’ll just surrender to it and sink beneath the waves because nothing I do is ever good enough to make a difference. Here, beneath the waves, the sound of rain upon water will calm my mind until the world fades from blue to black.

The damp 3:13AM air keeps my eyelids open as I try to fight back the thoughts that would kill me if I allowed them to take over. That’s something you’ll never realize, I know, that every moment for me is a fight between life and death, and you will never know that sometimes, sometimes you are enough to be my tipping point. You are the line between embracing death and risking a life where I die each day without you.

But that’s what sacrifice means, to give everything you are -- your love, your life. No matter the cost to yourself. But you must never expect them to love you back. And that’s the part that I forgot about and that’s why I’m so beautifully broken at this starlit hour as the twilight paints shadows across my face. Because I know there are some dreams that can never come true.

Turns out, curing writer’s block is a lot easier than curing heartbreak.

Sincerely,

--
Scribbles

castles in the air

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them." 

-- Henry David Thoreau

|| suffering from writer's block. blog post coming soon, for those of you who care, if anyone does ||

to love or to lose

A letter, to you --

Welcome to the world of my dreams, where terrible things happen whether or not I want them to.

It hurts with every heartbeat, but I’m still just trying to figure out if everything that happened was real or just a dream. Bright fluorescent lights blind my eyes but I still see you clearly, your unconscious body laid out across the metal hospital bed beside me. Your pale arm is extended from your seemingly lifeless body, and I’m holding your hand so tight but your skin is so cold that all I can do is pray that you’ll wake up and be okay. I shudder every time I look at the IV protruding from your arm and think about how close you were to dying, and I just can’t let myself believe that’s what you actually wanted.

I felt like throwing up when I walked into that empty dark room and as soon as I flicked the lights on I had to be the one that found you drenched in your own blood. I didn’t trust myself to do anything but scream for help; help for you, because I wanted you to be alive so much, and help for me, because I knew if they told me you wouldn’t make it my heart would stop beating. I screamed, because I couldn’t bear the thought that I might actually lose you and you didn’t even know how much you meant to me. I screamed, because I was afraid that this was real and I would forever remember this terrifying moment as it came back to haunt me in every dream. I screamed at Death as She hovered over your head and I saw the look of victory in Her eye because She thought She’d won, but I chased her away with whatever strength I had left and I told Her that She could never ever have you as long as I was here, and then I collapsed beside you because my voice and my hopes had run out.

I woke up in the same hospital room as you so I guess they found us; you, ready to embrace Death, and me, desperately holding onto your life because I just couldn’t let you go. Recovering consciousness did nothing to bring me back because I still couldn’t feel anything at this point. The hours I spent sitting by your bed, holding your hand, wishing you’d just wake up and everything would be fine, blankly staring at the white-washed wall across from me. Nothing mattered more in those million minutes than you, and I wished you could know that it was both of our lives on the line and not just yours.

The scent of metal and blood finally got to my head and I felt myself slipping away again, but this time all the screaming was in my head because no sound came out of my mouth when I opened it to cry for someone to watch over you. Darkness enveloped my mind and I spent an eternity pleading for your pardon, petitioning for another day, praying for your life. I broke down half a thousand times and I shouted at Death over and again, Stay away from him. Take my life but just let him live. Everything felt hazy and She disappeared for a moment, only to lead me down the path of my own life regrets that had made me hate myself more, but I knew that I couldn’t because I had to be here to pull you back from the depths of darkness. All those distressing doubts and dismaying dreams replayed reminded me of those nights where only the music kept me alive as I wondered if I would ever escape this mindless agony. Everything I’d shoved to the back of my heart She forced to resurface so I would drown in it another time as if I hadn’t already felt enough pain. My head stayed above water only long enough to repeat your name in a whisper so I wouldn’t forget why I’d chosen to live through everything you’d never know about.

Waking up for the second time, to see you still unconscious, made me cry. Warm tears were drawn from my eyes and slid down my tired face and landed on your arm, and my whole world blurred. Your arm, slightly hanging off the side of the metal bed frame, partially bandaged after they found you, to stop the bleeding from where you’d cut yourself and hoped to die. I knew they’d stitched up the skin but I wished you were awake so I could kiss your scars and let you know that I still thought you were beautiful anyway. Tears grew cold in the corners of my eyes so I wiped them away and knew I wanted more than anything to be your best friend, but I didn’t think you’d ever let me because of all my mistakes.

I’d fought back Death before and I wish I’d known what caused you to trip over the line to try and take your life. If your blood was made of words, I wish I could have read all the ones that drove you insane as they spilled out of your skin because I know the words that would be found in mine, and I wondered if there was something I could have done to stop this before it ever happened. I wondered if it scared you to face Death alone, or how many times you’d chosen to be brave enough to keep on living before you gave in to Her irresistible offer tonight. And I wondered if the thought of me had ever kept you alive one of those times, or if I was just another reason to make you hate yourself.

Trembling from shock and the inevitably cold hospital room temperature, I started crying again, haunted by hurt and hate from my past as I pondered whether we exist to love or to lose. My eyes closed and I wished to dream of you and then wake to find you fully alive. Sleep surrounded my head and my heart and all consciousness left me again, I thought of nothing.

How vivid the nature of these events made it hard to believe that when I woke up it was all a dream. The words tumbled out of my mouth all in a jumble, It was only a dream, because I wasn’t sure if I could believe it. It was all my imagination run wild into the darkness over the night, triggered by that picture of you I saw yesterday, and the song that serenaded me to sleep. Dazed and disturbed, I can’t begin to think about how strange it will be to see you next week after having a dream like that, and you never knew. Welcome to the world of my dreams, ironic that I seek sleep to find peace but only find hauntingly painful dreams that I never wish to come true.

I promise I’ll be here if you ever need a friend.

Sincerely,

--
Scribbles


P.S. If you feel troubled or terrified after reading this, then you know something of how I felt after I dreamed it. I write to release the memories from my mind.