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you don't realize you're numb until you start to feel again.
it sobers you. reminds you of the need to breathe, to nourish, to sleep, and to wake. reminds you of the necessity of existence. what if this necessity doesn't exist at all?
the winter wind, frozen; the tea in summer, hottest of all; autumn too beautiful to be true, and you with her, unseparable.
the winter wind remains frozen, the tea in summer is still as hot, and autumn feels too unreal. she's gone.
the head could ache endlessly from the abundance of unseen, unvisited, undone, unfelt.
you are destined to feel, see, and do it all alone. all this time, it was foolish to hope for a happy ending. the sun continues to shine just as brightly, but she is not there. the water on the skin is too sticky, too viscous, but she is not there. where is she?
there were no promises, no eternity, no guarantees, but how could she?
the emptiness cannot be drowned out even by liters of vodka mixed with something, ear-burning music, and horribly foolish melodramas. will you ever rediscover yourself?
do you want that?
this abyss beckons, pulls, tightens, fills, and one-night feelings won't help you anymore. fast endorphins kill. suffocate. you can't anymore.
too much feelings.
but how much is too much?
solitude no longer frightens, but it frightens to madness. the space you thought would always be occupied will now always be free.
and for what reason did you have to go all this way? why did you have to feel what it's like to feel nothing at all?
sometimes you think it wasn't worth it. then you hate yourself for those thoughts. your life is no longer yours and no longer life.
they say start anew. why? you can't even make amends with the old.
reheating yesterday's pasta so it's not tasteless. why?
taking out the laundry from the washing machine on time. why?
do all these foolish people understand what this is?
your pillow will never cradle her tired head, tousling her hair, and it won't retain the scent of her shampoo. your old mattress won't conform to the shape of her body. your forks will never be held by her icy fingers. lips will never touch worn-out cups.
there was a time to buy new ones. why?
you can only see her in dreams. you can only touch her in dreams. the scent of her perfume lingers in your apartment like a phantom pain, tearing your lungs apart every few eternal seconds, and it doesn't stop. would you want it to stop?
there are days when it gets easier. you can wake up, make coffee out of habit, even take a shower. it lasts until the moment you look at yourself in the mirror. foolish, yes. it would be better if it were you. she would surely know what to do with her life in your position. she lived somehow before you. and she would live after. you can't—you.
the worst days pass in a way that you don't even remember them afterward. how much time has passed? a month, two, three? it doesn't get better, and tears are running out.
hopelessness. artificially created hopelessness. you created it yourself.
in tandem with indifference. a perfect match, the emphasis on self-destruction.
how could they think that without her, you'd be better off? that you'd be free, return to your inconspicuous, comfortable mediocrity as if nothing happened? as if it was meant to be, as if she poisoned your life, as if it was better without her. ha, you handle it yourself now.
life now seems like a farce. a theater of one not too talented, miserable actor drowning in their own pain, not even trying to break free from the cycle of meaninglessness. and you've become that actor.
you could want to travel, you could want revenge, you could want to reclaim your life. you could do everything you wanted before her, but what's the point now if she won't come back? you won't be able to tell how hard your day was at work, you won't be able to share that an apple reminded you of her, that green is no longer your favorite color, and that this teddy bear ist now only silent. you won't hear the notification sound of a message or a phone call anymore.
you won't hear your name spoken by her anymore. you no longer want to hear your name spoken by anyone.
you now hate water and everything associated with it.
you were supposed to be together. now you're just waiting, hoping that this day will come faster. what if even then you won't be able to see her?
in your dreams, she smiles. sometimes, she runs her fingers through your hair. sometimes, she embraces you. sometimes, you both eat potatoes at the gas station, sometimes, you clumsily sip tea she poorly brewed. sometimes, you bid farewell before you depart. in dreams, she is alive, real, present with you, and you can't believe her kisses truly graced your lips. you can't believe her fingers touched your skin, that she loved you.
if it were possible, you would steal that sensation from your memory, only to seal it in a box. to open when utterly exhausted and feel it once more. you would preserve the warmth of her skin, carrying it in your pocket with fragments of her voice and the image of her face. you would transfer all your memories onto film, to avoid going mad, questioning if it was reality, to gaze at it endlessly, studying her face not just from memory.
you had too little time. you resisted for too long. clung to something ultimately meaningless, tried to deny what you now guard so securely. you can't learn more about her now. can't ask what she thought before sleep, won't discover who she wanted to be in childhood, and if her expectations about you were met. you can't, in a surge of dopamine, ask what she thought of you when she first saw you. what caught her? why was she foolish enough to fall for someone like you? didn't she know where you would lead her?
you wish you could rewind time. want to turn everything around a hundred and eighty degrees, want to play all the cards again and see the outcome. did it all lead to this, or did you lead it to this yourself?
will you ever think of her again without pain? will you remember everything that bound you without feeling that endless, bottomless hole she left behind? you turned out to be the field, and your end a sweeping fire. she left a desert in place of an oasis. need it be said that before her, the desert was you?
the ceiling in your bedroom has never been so intriguing. you're drilling no longer a hole in it—a void, and there's nothing more fascinating. you must have been fired a long time ago.
you must have been forgotten long ago. erased from all lists of friends, relatives, acquaintances, and reminders of your past surroundings come only sporadically, with quiet headaches, throbbing in your temples, muffled by a dull noise. did you erase them first? definitely. you erased yourself.
love is painful. empty. a black hole. that's you. and you won't find another, because she was that too. you were a black hole together, and nothing better could have happened with anyone else. you wouldn't have found anyone as annoying as she was, even if you wanted to. as annoying as she was, that's how much you loved her. how much you wanted her nuisance. how much you wanted her.
her smile—a still frame in your mind. her voice spins non-stop, like a record, in your dreams. you think you couldn't want to stop it, even if you tried. you silently roam the house, sketching scenarios where she's here, waiting for your chilled body in a bed where you've never lain. she would embrace you, hold you so tight, as if she needed those hugs herself. as if there was nothing that could pull her away from you.
this was supposed to continue. you were supposed to invite her on dates and kiss her, and hug her after nightmares, convincing her that she was better. after all this time, you finally understood that it wasn't she who came into your life. you came into hers. you were supposed to help her understand who she really was. you were supposed to help her realize that she wasn't who other people thought she was. she was so much more. that was your mission in this life. not her.
did you ever think, before this moment, what it's like to be her? rejected by everyone, including yourself, but still trying to understand why she's here? she could have given up a long time ago. she could have thrown in the towel, succumbed to public judgment, and returned to the path she peacefully trod all these years before you met. she would still be beautiful. and you wouldn't.
she was braver. she was stronger. she was more complex.
but, oh, how beautiful she was. in a couple of years, you won't even believe yourself when you remember how her hands, running through the wool fabric of your sweater, felt on your back, and how vulnerable she was when she looked into your eyes. you didn't deserve that. when you reached for her, when you tried to grasp her elusive hands, when you wanted her to be near. you didn't understand that you didn't deserve it. you understand now. it's too late now.
and then it was too late. the number of "what ifs" is suffocating.
and you can't breathe anymore.