Work Text:
That calendar used to be full. One could look at it for hours. I’d have all my to-do lists and schedules stacked up in my head. I had no idea how much I was truly holding up. I thought I was only merely important.
Your visits used to overwhelm me. You used to bring me so much and try to lift me up. The light in my dark. The healing for my ache. The song to the electronic beeps and monotony. The citrus scent which drowned the antiseptic. The smile that slowly became more strained. You used to sob into my arms. I did so, too. Yet your tears were always the heaviest. Now those tears rest on my shoulders and fuse into my eyelids.
I don’t want anything. Not even tomorrow. I don’t want to see the sun rise to remind me. Let me melt into my bedsheets and disappear. Should I follow in your footsteps? There's nothing to do. That calendar used to be full. I could flick through the months and years fruitlessly. Why was I smiling, although my world was collapsing? Why was I feeling so lonely, despite you being beside me? Am I fragile for a reason? I don’t want to forget you. Yet, should I? Would the pain of losing you again make up for it?
She tells me to take my time, as she can handle the building herself, but I want to hurry up already. The carpet feels so dusty. I’m yet to understand why it hasn’t been cleaned. If I look hard enough, I’ll still find shards that stain my hands, yet I wouldn’t flinch. She tells me she understands, going through losses of her own, yet I’ve never felt so distant. The world outside is full of mockingbirds. I hear pained whispers in the trees. I see shadows that hide and never come out until their hearts force them.
An endless rain will fill my heart forever, despite the sun. I was your sun; how did I never notice? The endless rain pours out onto my pillows. I should’ve done something. If nothing happened, if I never had my limp nor my staples, that calendar would still be full. I’d find things to fill it with. The clock ticks so slowly. It's laughing at me, at the time I had yet didn’t use. Is it reminding me that my time is limited? Should I make it?
Never felt so close yet so distant to you. I understand it all. How nobody could stand in your place, and how much you hated it. How much you were pressured to speak first. How much you balanced the health of the building over yours. How much that losing your lifeline changed you. How losing me lost you. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry. Sometimes I’ll pretend the cold of the window is you. If this was a dream, I wish I'd never wake up from it. The relief I’d get wouldn’t be enough to wash away my scars. The endless rain runs dry.
Mirrors still remind me of what you left. News that she brought which stabbed me in the heart once. Sealed writing which stabbed me twice. The image of what was you slitting my throat. The blood which I drowned in. If I left, there's nothing I’d miss from that calendar. No meetings I’d skip, or errands I’d forget. I used to sob over how we’ll never meet again, but I'm doubting that now.
If I’m lucky, they’ll empty the room, and take that calendar with them.