The Centimeter Closer to Doom

TUESDAY

It's funny how the table turns. Funny, in the sense that I don't want to use a negative word to explain it, and I'm avoiding it. I'm in denial, and I'm denying that very denial too.

Everything's okay. Everything is normal, I say, when it's not. It's very much not. All is deteriorating, down, down and down, it continues to get worse.

Before, I had so much adrenaline peeking in my insides that I couldn't close my eyes at night, and it was all because of you. My intoxication on my love for you wouldn't let me sleep. It put goosebumps on my body and a joy I had the urge to shout about from the top of the world, but every bit of that comes down to now.

You're the only one that's keeping the tussled intertwining line on the heart monitor up and running, instead of a beeping straight line that carried me to a more official darkness. Here and malfunctioning, nothing else matters except you.

Don't let me go so soon, okay? Don't give up yet. It's selfish to ask, but I'm begging you to give me a chance to fight through this. I'll do everything I said I would do as long as I hold on. As long as you're that light for me. As long as there's still hope.

Then and now, the base is still the same. It hasn't changed. Eyes open or shut, I love you. Whatever comes along the way, that won't change. It's the way it is, and I wouldn't accept the highest of offere to trade it. Heck, I wouldn't even entertain it.

I can see our idiotic gossiping go on far out into the distance. It'll feel bright and gold to be able to sit back, relax and laugh with you, even when night is trembling beneath our feet. With each other, the way it's supposed to be, we can make everything okay again.

But I don't really know what's going to happen with this. I might fall into a deeper sleep. The one thing I want you to remember is that I tried. I tried so hard to stay with you and see and feel the beautiful prize that you are.

I'm doing what I can to claw myself out and finding my way back to where you are. I'm following after our story left at a cliffhanger, and I can hear your music play. It's never stopped ever since I've been here, and I'm begging the world to let me be your harmony.

I already know what I'm going to do if I can get up. I'll hold you tight, assure you that everything is fine regardless of how teary eyed you are from thinking you'd be losing me and I'll tell you that things will be looking up from now on.

The thing is, I don't think life is ever like that. Every second I'm taking another step away from you. I can't even tell if it's been one step or a hundred by this point, but what I do know is that I'm overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed by the fact that goodbyes are always sad, and overwhelmed because I'm wondering if I should be saying 'let me go, please' instead of 'stay with me'.

Either way, don't cry for me too much, my love.

You've always been too strong for your own good.

WEDNESDAY

Your mom probably warned you about that kind everyone despises.

The ones that make silly promises of eternity like they have a say in it, so pushed into your mind that when it crumbles, your heart does too, split in far more than two pieces. The cracks are straight rather than jagged, and it tells you that that they have experience in destruction. That they did it for no reason besides that they felt like it.

She probably warned you about those ones that Hollywood presents as the dude on a motorbike, with tattoos down his arms, and his torso only seen without his leather jacket and his jaw locking in a cigarette.

She would tell you that in reality, they don't always present themselves that way. That sometimes they'll look dorky and geeky behind thick rimmed glasses and a button up, but that the point is all they need is a heartbeat to break yours.

They might take you for rides around town, wind in your hair, whispering these sweet nothings that you shouldn't turn your head for in the first place, and she would warn you that that kind of man can become irresistible before you realized it yourself.

Suddenly there's that person that you think makes you finally feel worth it. That makes you feel good enough. They've let you in entirely, more than just one step in the door, and that was that. You would be in above your head, in songful prayers that you'll be cradled when you fall.

But everything breaks down. There's no responses on your cell. You worry how they're doing, what they're up to, if you've been forgotten, or maybe abandoned and left behind. You're skeptical of handing anybody your heart, or if it should only be your hand, skin-deep at the very most. Only a part of you if anything. Of falling in love again, if its even possible, taking that risk, or just numbing yourself with so-called fun.

You'd be scared. I mean, I think I would be if I were you, and I know you feel emotions just like I do. You never want to let go of the one you've carried so much with. Who would?

And it sucks that I've become everything that those terribly sick people are. Everything that you've been warned about. I'm leaving you behind to pick up the pieces all by yourself. I told you I'd be there and I can't be, not even at halfway. We lifted each other up and then I cut it short, taking every benefit for myself before you were forced to take the hard part on your own.

But there's a difference. I didn't do it on purpose. I don't want to go. I don't want to play with your feelings and leave. If my brain would function the way it was supposed to, we'd be looking up at the stars by the oceans ide, and we'd be laughing about how we didn't used to be able to do it before because of the curfew we got from our parents.

Can you promise me that much, Princess? I'm telling you, I didn't want to be the bad guy. I'd be good to you regardless if it was up to me. I wouldn't do this to you.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

THURSDAY

It's okay.

It might take a while, but you'll be okay eventually. If I have to go, I know you'll hurt at first the same way I'd hurt if you did, but you'll move on, and overcome it. You'll make it.

You don't need me to walk or to breathe. I helped you to see what you were capable of, but that was always there, within you the entire time, and you'll find that again, even if it's without me. What you did when I was with you, you can very well do by yourself. Maybe better, if I'm not in the way.

One day, you'll probably pass by that waterfall where you brought me to on our very first date and when you showed me around your childhood town. Sure, in the beginning you might think of me sometimes and I'm not saying you're not allowed to, but the day will come that that's not the first thing that pops into your mind. It'll simply be the landmark by 12th and Aurora, at least for three seconds. Then overtime it'll grow to six, twelve, twenty four, forty eight until that's all it ever was.

Don't suppress moving on. Don't think you owe it to me to remember me. Accept that you can be happy again, and soar up to new heights in a perspective that you didn't have when you were with me. Think for yourself some more, you know?

We both agreed at least for us, that death was nothing more than a deep sleep that we would wake up from soon enough, in a much better world by then, so you know already that I won't be suffering or that God plucked me away like a pretty flower in a garden and stole me back. Let that comfort you, that I was never a target and that neither were you, and believe that one day we'll be able to see each other again, even if it's only as friends.

Don't be afraid to find warmth in someone else's arms. Don't be reluctant because it's only been a month, a year, or more since my passing, and you don't feel like it's enough. Let yourself be happy again the way that we used to be. Don't put limitations on yourself.

When he makes you laugh, laugh out your little heart. Smile from ear to ear, to a humor new and maybe more reassuring than mine.

It's not because I'm not in love with you. I am, and for what I have left, I will be, but laying here like this, with everything reminding me of you, I can't help but to think about how the pain that I'll cause you is going to be worse than what anyone else can possibly do.

I need you, baby, trust me, but in a world of billions, as much as I had to work and improve to deserve you myself, there's gotta be someone out there that could deserve you too if you let them.

I was the happiest with you in my lifetime, but it's a possibility you can be happier with somebody else during yours.

I'm not telling you to give up on me while I'm still fighting. Please don't do that. I'm telling you that if worse comes to worse, don't stay tied down to chains that have already been undone.

Let yourself break free.

FRIDAY

At the very least, I'm glad I don't have any regrets. I did my best. I did everything that I possibly could with my life and I like to think that I lived it well for the flawed person that I am. I was never at a hundred percent, but in the world we live in, who can be?

Am I right?

The point is, I've lived for everything I longed to live for, and in some sort of way I can consider myself lucky that at such a young age, I figured that out.

Who I used to be makes me feel icky inside. I feel like this boulder sunken down to the bottom of the ocean, in a place where nothing could get any worse. I'm not the person that let's life get me down so easily.

I stopped wishing I was numb, and I quit being curious about painkillers and alcohol like they were a solution and like they were going to end the agony and the emptiness. For certain, I wasn't a basic decoration left on the shelf to look pretty, but never to be touched.

I felt full. Yellow in your starlight, and I found a place for myself on this earth. I stood as an obstacle to the devil himself too much, and I put myself in the middle of danger. I complained a little too much than it was fair and I missed the mark sometimes, but I did everything I did for good reason, or I learned otherwise. I grew up. I wasn't a kid anymore.

And that was because of you. I gave you oxygen when your lungs needed it. I put effort into meeting you, crossing all sorts of nature in search of you, and I pampered you as much as I could. It wasn't much, but it was something. I gave you something to remember me by, and I did more than the bare minimum. I did the most I could.

Sometimes that meant a shoulder to cry on and when it need be, my shirt was soaked in your tears. I proved that I was more than decor because I became a home to you and I gave you a place to rest and find peace. I sang to you when your heart hurt and I gave you the last bit of my energy when you didn't think you could get through your day.

Every once in a while, you'd ask me why. You'd say 'why do you put up with me?' or 'why did you fall in love with me in the first place?' or you'd use that phrase, 'there's so many fish in the sea' paired with 'what made me different?'.

The answer is and has been simple. Humans are made to dream, but that dream is impacted by what radiates nearby to them, and you were this ray of sunshine that I had to reciprocate. That made everything positive.

You were the one that helped me stop bleeding. The one that cleared up the wounds of my past and still loved me with my scars.

In my lifetime, I've accomplished everything I've needed to accomplish to get as far as I did.

I found you.

I don't think you realize the weight of that, love. Heck, I was one a person who's only reason for living was the next season of my favorite TV show coming out, and I know that that's okay. I know that nothing is wrong with that.

It's just that when I found you, the quality of life was so much better.

There will never be a time I regret you. You're the key to my existence. The reason I'm here as long as I have been.

SATURDAY

You've never failed to impress me. Just thought I'd tell you that.

You've always been a lot stronger than me. A naturally talented, great unstoppable ball of inspiration, and you were so contagious too. There were so many reasons to be enamored by you and how you carried yourself. There were so many reasons to long to take after you.

If I would've been able to land in your shoes, I couldn't have pulled it off as gracefully as you did. Trust me, I would've done it if it meant that you never had to suffer, --I'd take on any frightening thing so that you didn't have to-- but you took it on like you were constantly two steps ahead of its every move.

I'm certain that you felt like you could barely carry on even when everyone told you you were strong, but look at you today, standing tall above it all. Nothing got in your way.. There's no evidence to prove you were ever anything less than okay. Too much loneliness, too much fear, and yet it didn't show.

I know that if it were me, I would burst into flames from the inside. My lungs would fill with this dark, dark smoke and I'd have black smoke expanding in my bloodstream, tainting it into a shade it wasn't meant to be. I'd choke and I'd cough and I couldn't find air, as much as I'm surrounded by it. I'd shrivel up into nothing but ash, too weak to accept the attack, and to defend myself. To fight back.

But you've shown that things end up being too much sometimes, for every one of us. Human to human, as much as we want to exploit our differences and turn everyone against to each other, we're all the same. We're all just trying to get through another day, and in the bare bones of it, every single one of those we complete is a success in itself. When the fog clears out and the we take in the fresh air, we can reset and start over.

It wouldn't have hurt for me to become more like you.

Still, the point is you told yourself that you could do this. That you could get here, and there was a time that you didn't have anybody to help you, back before we met. Even when it would get hard and you looked down from your tightrope to the rivers below and you'd lose your focus, you found balance. You continued forward. You were fine.

I want this to be any other normal day of encouragement. I want to end this with a vow to hold onto your hand and never let go as we climb our way to the very top of this earth, find our way down again and repeat, but I guess this is a journey you're going to have to take on your own.

It's different. Or it may very well be, so we need to prepare for the worst. We need to prepare for the letdown, but just remember. Just let me tell you this:

You did it before. You picked yourself up when you thought that you couldn't. You can do it again.

I'm sorry that you have to, though.

SUNDAY

I heard you.

It was static-y and it didn't stick out much from the hustling and bustling going on in the hallways and the beep of every monitor in this dang place crying like they've been ran over by a car, but if I'm not wrong, my mom and my sister must've showed me to you via phone, and based off of your hesitation, the rock in your throat, it doesn't look very good.

"Am I that bad-looking, darling, that it's made you speechless?" I would've said that if this was more lighthearted of a moment, and well, of course, if I could get myself to speak, but I have no capability. The atmosphere stays tense, and that tension has no intentions of treating me kindly.

Say something, please? Because this silence in the air is digging into my skin. It's a hook to my thigh and it's caving in deeper. It's saying you feel like giving up on me. Like you'd take my place in a heartbeat, or you'd follow me where I was going so that you didn't have to tremble.

It's saying that my chances aren't so high.

Don't get me wrong. I love hearing your voice. It feels like a century since I've been able to hear you, but why does if seem so over my head? Why does it seem like you know more about me than I know myself, and why does it seem that I was better off not sensing that? Why do I suddenly, so quickly, feel about two inches tall?

Can you even see me? Can you still consider me alive? Or when you look at me, do you see a very dead corpse that wouldn't be able to lift a finger unless there were divine intervention?

No, baby. This is such a punch in the face. I've thought it so many times, that this isn't the way that it's supposed to be, but I think it in capital letters now, big and bold across the center of my forehead.

I'm not leaving you. I can't. Not yet. Not like this. I thought I knew what this meant. I thought, even though I wasn't ready to say my farewell, I could manage it.

But I can't. I can't do it.

I'd start over for you and only for you. If I woke up and I couldn't walk, if I was paralyzed from the waist down, I don't care. I don't care how much I stumble. How much I fall. I don't care if I have to start crawling like I kid again and if people give me weird glances in the streets. I'd swallow all my pride.

I don't know very much. I never have. I'm not rich. Not very well educated. I don't have a big name or a face that makes it onto magazines, but when the heart speaks more than the brain does it's code for seriousness. Its code for more than the mouth could put into words.

My love, how could I say goodbye? What? Some sort of 'I'm sorry I couldn't make it to you'? What kind of apology is that? Where's a way out? Why do I have to stay here like this?

I have to get up. If it takes one more second, or if I'm stuck here for the uncountable, I have to get up.

I have to hide from this death that encircling me, but it just has to be easier said than done. I'm lost and I can't find a place to duck behind. Everything is mission impossible. So impossible that all I have is fears. I'm not even allowed to feel alive. I'm stuck surviving and not living.

It's hard to be alone with myself, in my head space. I need to be somewhere else. I need to get something else on my mind. I need to feel another emotion besides terror, because I can tell. A home I've never called home before is calling me, and it's too dark there. It's too sad.

A glass heart is not easy to take care of.

Help.

Help. Help. Help.

How can I possibly be drowning on land? One trickle down the cheek and I'm already drowning.