The Place Where Death Lurks

MONDAY

A guitar without strings. A cigarette, no lighter. A video game controller and no batteries. A diamond without shine, without glow, without rarity. That's what I feel like.

I hate being useless. I always have. Some might have said I have a problem. It's the one insult that got on my nerves and made me want to drop all my maturity to throw a fit, but it's only occurred to me now that there's worse; being useless and not being able to do a single thing to change it.

I can't sit up. I can't fight someone. I can't retaliate. I can't revenge, and on the other hand I can't make amends, forgive people, find new passions, new hobbies, new music and fall in love with life.

Heck, I can't even look up at the ceiling. However long I've been here, I couldn't tell you if straight up above me has tile squares or spray on paint. I have no idea.

Embarrassing, isn't it? Considering that you haven't even been able to step foot in this place and it's more likely you know more about my surroundings than I do.

Rock bottom stings and in the sand at the ocean floor, this crevice is snuggling me in quite nicely, but it's not like that's exciting. My eyes are shut and I can't sleep. My lungs inflate but I can't breathe. Everything I thought was good is flat out bad, right, wrong.

There's no light here. I swear, the sun doesn't shine anymore. I'm blind. I can't see it. Do you? Can you explain to me what it looks like? Describe it to me? Infuse hope into me and make up for the span I've lost touch with it?

I only know one color and it's blue.

I'm low. Lower. Lowest.

I'm sorry that I'm only human. I thought that if I ever would think up that phrase, it would be out of sarcasm, but this time it's not. Genuinely, I'm sorry that I'm only human.

I wasn't initially the kind to show what was on my heart, and I took my time with you. I wasted good crucial seconds being too shy and feeling overly flustered, wrongly thinking that I had all the time in the world. I kept everything on the inside at first, like I was keeping everything together when I was actually melting right into the cement when I'd see you.

Why do we do that as people? Act like we can hold our composure during both sad and joyful emotion, when we want to burst out in shouts? Even though we have to live our life forward, why don't we ever try to understand it backwards? It's always about the present and we just assume that we'll get a next time when it's possible we won't.

If only we could realize that early on. If only I did. Maybe by now it would've felt like I had a good period of time with you. Maybe I wouldn't be feeling so down. But here I am. This is me, and I can't hide that. I can't fight very much more than I've already tried.

I shouldn't have faked my way through anything, lying to myself that I had no feelings for you way back when. I shouldn't have told myself that it was okay to back off and never at least let you know the way I looked at you. I shouldn't have made myself believe that it was okay to walk away.

I should've jumped at it sooner. I would've known more about the miracle in you. I would know so much more even in an additional day. I could've learned to be happier earlier. It's stupid honestly, that I didn't take the leap. It's stupid that I pretended I didn't love you.

Look what that did, when it comes down to it. I was nervous. I was shy. I thought those were valid excuses, but now I'm just plain pathetic. There's no pretty way to say it. It can't be dazzled up in jewels or drenched in icing.

The dam has broke and the flood is unstoppable. I can't stop it, though I wish I could.

All I amount to now is ugly crying.

A pile of tears and drying bones.

TUESDAY

I guess in the end, I'm not good for you. Maybe I shouldn't have given you everything no matter how eased and light it made me feel. Maybe I should've let myself feel hollow, relying on the bite of lemon and limes to keep myself sane, when I knew darn well it'd lead up to alcohol if it took a months or a years time.

Either or would still be burning its way down my throat until now, but at least I wouldn't have been leaving you. I wouldn't be reminiscing on a random sunny day for most people, the first time you told me you love me when I can't get it back.

I should've known that nothing ever goes my way, and I shouldn't have expected that this time it would, but it's too late now. I can't help but remember the shade of the canopies and the redness in your lips, in your cheeks, in your nail polish.

I can only imagine how it would zap at me if this were reversed, if you were the one laying here right now. I know that I couldn't afford to lose you. I know that I wouldn't be able to take it if one day you were only a yesterday and not a tomorrow, or even a today.

I'd scramble any highs and lows for anything you would need. I'd tear myself apart, I'd give pieces of myself away, I'd rip my clothes to prevent you from bleeding -- I'd do it all, and I'd go lunatic crazy, but I also know what it's like to be here, deteriorating, and I know that sometimes nothing can be done to stop someone from vanishing away.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that it's come to this, and that I'll have to leave you all on your own. Those corny messages we always exchanged just to tease the other couples who did it, you won't get those notifications anymore. Our idiot fights, our make-outs during commercial breaks, sharing mango smoothies, or that copy-cat moment of the iconic scene from Lady and the Tramp, just for the heck of it.

I'd be lying if I said saying goodbye to all of that didn't feel bitter, and I'm pretty certain you'd see right through me if I told you that to your face just to make it easier to forget me. You know me well enough to figure that out, but you'd also know that I would try to mean it.

I mean that in the best way. If this is it -- if this this the way it has to be, then I want you to look into another man's eyes eventually and call me a friend even if I was more, and brush me aside. It'll he better if I'm nothing after I've said my unwanted one-sided goodbye. After all, I'll only be able to hurt you if you let me.

It doesn't have to be that way. I'll let you let me go. Don't worry. You know I always want the best for you. I'd never do anything that dragged you down, that put you behind.

Come on. Even if I did come out of this, who could be sure how I'd be doing? Do you actually want to be with someone who breaks down eighty times a day? I would want to stay regardless, but thinking about it now, it doesn't feel right.

Maybe you'd say you'd want to do anything for me. That you'd want to support me, but you shouldn't. You're young. You can find a life outside of me.

You're a ball of fire and of zeal, love. You're made for something more. Destined, really. I couldn't get in the way of that.

I don't want you to resent me. I mean, yes, I don't want to have to set you free. It makes me not want to be myself anymore, but I will if that's what it takes.

If all goes to the worst, and with as cold as my hands are getting and with the flawed levels within me being more than the average human being, it's quite proven that I'm a mistake. That I'm breaking in ways that cannot and will not be fixed.

I would've never guessed it'd be like this. I wouldn't have guessed that even a tropical place starts to freeze when you're all alone.

But so be it.

WEDNESDAY

Have I sounded cold-hearted? Do I sound like I'm disregarding you? Pushing you aside?

I'm trying to think about what you would be telling me if you heard my thought process. It's a lot to understand. I'm absolutely everywhere and I don't think I've made sense of the painting in my mind myself.

Sometimes I feel this deep itchy need to apologize. To get the guilt out of my chest, and sometimes I have this longing to fight and beat the odds. They're my only moods these days and if one is drowning me the other is fifty yards away. It's always 100-0. Not 50-50.

The thing is, one bad thing, no matter how bad doesn't cancel out the good. Yes, we found each other six feet deep. We were already practically digging up our own graves, but we helped each other out of that broken place. We comforted each other and cheered each other on. But where did that bring us? Here, in a situation neither of us have any power. In the end, it didn't make a difference.

A bad thing is still always a bad thing and it effects the both of us. It was my mistake to put my heart upon someone else. It was my mistake to involve you. To let you love me in the first place.

I did a lot for you, and they were the best moments of my life. I cut pieces of myself so I can be a part of your life and I let you know openly and publicly how I felt about you. I made sure that you were on top.

I claimed you as not number one, but my one and only and I held onto you tighter when times for hard, so that we wouldn't drift away in our own currents. I shouted out for you when we kissed and when we embraced, and I figured out how to make you comfortable. How to make the conditions as good as possible for you to stay.

Yet everything that I've worked hard on, everything that I've built can fall over like an ax to a tree, and that's that. It's over.

I wasted your time. I'm cornered now, and there's nothing I can do. There's no way out. Even if I asked you to wait, to still hope on me, to still root for me and cheer for me, I can't even promise you that I'll be able to open my eyes and run to you.

I did my best, baby, but like a lot of things, I don't always succeed. The thing is, with this scenario, failing this is the very last thing I'll ever be able to do. There will be no more after this. I might fail to flip a pancake perfectly, or turn in my procrastinated paper in before the due date, but life went on. Tomorrow came, but when your own lungs turn on you and everyday is a battle, it's not the same.

It'll never be the same.

Look at me. There's no future within me to provide. What could I possibly do for you from now on if I can't break free from reverse? From rewinding? From looking back at the past? What could I do for you if even my tears go unnoticed by the traffic nearby? What could I do if my love for you, one I vowed to never let anyone or anything replace is going to waste.

It doesn't get worse than this.

So you have to do what's best for you. Find guidance elsewhere, in somebody else or in a thing you love. It will be the fuel to guide you to finding your true home, and it will heal you of the ending you shouldn't have to experience. You know your worth. You know that you're better than me, and you know that whatever becomes of me, it's how it has to be.

They say that if you love someone, truly, you can set them free, and I promised you that I do.

I love you.

THURSDAY

Fine, fine, fine.

Give me one last time. One last time to think of me as me and you as you. It's not that easy, giving up everything that made my life the very life that it was, and it feels off. Goodbye can't ever be said cleanly. A person can't be shaken off so easily, and I don't think deep down, that I want it to be.

I'm hung up on it. On us, and all the things that we used to do. The things that we were supposed to do in the days ahead, and I learn two things from it. First, pain sucks. Horribly. It's what we all fear the most in this world, but second, pain shows that you care. There's meaning in what's being left behind, and I'm lucky to have found someone I don't want to let go of.

For example, we once dressed up as elegantly as we possibly could, but in knock-offs nevertheless, suited up for an evening dinner in a fancy restaurant that we couldn't afford. Turns out, it showed, and we weren't even allowed to touch a menu, let alone step foot inside.

Not that it mattered, though. We walked home together in the rain, nervous shivering fingers grazing what barely stuck out of our soaked sleeves. We stayed up all night, suffering brain freezes as if we weren't cold enough already from an ice cream cart that cruised down the street, about to close up for the night.

It was ran by an older woman, and she teased us about inviting her to our wedding, when it would be and she told us about how much she missed being young and in love like we are. We coughed up a made up date, May 15th --I couldn't forget that-- and later agreed that one year when we were ready, we'd wed on that day, when we were both ready, so we could laugh about that in our vows.

I've always been ready to stay up and wake up with you, but I freaked out about making it special, because that's what a proposal is, isn't it? More than an expression of love, it proves just how well we came to know each other for our souls. If you'd like it in front of a crowd, or in a privacy for our personal celebration. If you'd like it at sunrise or sunset. That kind of thing.

Letting that go, slipping near the edge of the meaning of existing itself, dreaming that what we are coming to was entirely an illusion, would bring me to my knees if I were able to stand. It's not easy to watch everything break, go away with the wind and simply let it be.

That goes to say that sometimes what has to be done isn't easy, but then again, going on like this-- why are we even doing it anymore?

I doubt I look recognizable. If I looked into like mirror, I wouldn't recognize my own reflection, so what's the use? It seems the best thing to do is walk away from it entirely. When it comes to you, everything is worth it, but when it comes to me, there's nothing left to hold on to.

Believe me. If I could look death in the face, claw at it with bleeding hands and the sharpest teeth, if I could just slam the door before it could enter and devour me, I would, but I can't. This is an uphill problem that's not good for our dimming energies.

You'll keep crossing my mind until the day I die. You'll drive me up-the-walls crazy until I take my last breath, but the reality is, that time is too near and it's best that I drench myself in closure to the furthest I can.

It'd be ideal if I could smile at you and tell you I was fine. That's what we want, but the walls are closing in. It's getting darker. Anxiety is setting in.

I'm freaked out. My head is going to explode.

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

I'm tired.

FRIDAY

All you'll have from me from here on out is a story that you'll never tell, or a story that you wish you didn't have to talk about. A story that when you finally get the courage to talk about, you'll start it off as "I'm sorry, I need to get this off my chest" or "I'm searching for the light that was robbed from me. I want to find the criminal behind this. Someone to blame, even though it's no one's fault".

That's how big of a disgrace I am.

The truth entitled in this agony isn't going away anytime soon. It'll probably get worse, and I can't tell you how you're going to deal with that. I can't be on your side through it this time and because of me, you'll have to go on with a battle wound in your head. Bruised and ashamed or something else. I couldn't describe it.

Of course, everyone deserves to create a stronger version of themselves. They deserve to improve and become a better, firmer person everyday, but how they become strong makes a difference. It could be unfair, and the way it's hitting you is.

Instead of being able to work on yourself, the world is working on you. It's forcing you to get thicker skin and to put on this heavy steel of armor that doesn't let anyone in to apparently help you cope for what will happen. It's turning you into a survivor, but it's taking away the liveliness you once had.

I know you. I can sense that it's fading from the other end of the earth. Why make you have to cope in the first place? That's wrong on every level. I hate it.

I hate that you have to grow up too fast while I just pause in time entirely. I hate that there's memories in you that will always be memories, and that I took up a part of your life that you can't get back, and that will be horrid to look back on. I hate how it was taken to you in one beat of your heart. How everything is good one day, and crumbling the next.

If you feel you have to blame anyone for this, just blame me. Hate me if that's what it takes to go on. I'll take it. I'll accept it. I'll understand.

When you consider it in an angle, I am the bad guy here. You gave me chances. You waited for me to heal, to overcome what came upon me, and I'm letting you down. I'm not living up to my word. I'm not explaining what should've been explained. I'm not communicating recently, unable to get words out. I haven't even given excuses. I'm a lost cause.

I can't be what you want or what you need. I can't love you and make sure that you believe it. I can't look in your eyes and check that you're convinced. I can't even move. How could I prove anything to you? How can I give you the reassurance you should have?

But even if you think all that about me, if you throw me under so that you can continue living, running, striving, the truth is, I know that losing you means losing everything.

That's the very idea you have to forget.

So you'll be okay faster. So you'll make it through without me.

SATURDAY

We were good. We were so good. Sometimes we were over the top all over each other and sometimes we drove everyone around us wild, but we were never bad. We were always, always good together and I think for the most part, majority of people would vouch for me on that one.

You laughed at my jokes when nobody else did, even if they were completely disgusting and purely irritating or you already heard them a thousand times before.

We were thigh against thigh at parties where we didn't know anyone, and as much as I felt like a key on a piano that's badly off, I saw that you made the same sound. Suddenly I didn't feel so awkward sitting there doing nothing besides letting the time pass. In fact, as wonky as our notes collided, I started to like it. I enjoyed your company.

And that gave me the power to notice things. I saw how the wrinkles didn't imprint on your eyes when you smiled sometimes, and I knew instantly that it wasn't genuine. That something was wrong. It was common sense by then that when you smiled for real, you smiled with your eyes.

You probably thought that no one noticed. Well, I did. I don't know if that's because somewhere in my subconscious I realize I'm the same as you, or if it's because I believed that when I was with you neither of us had to feel cold anymore, but I did what I could to catch onto everything. Every little thing.

I liked to think that it paid off for the both of us, and for a while it's pretty evident it did.

We would sway to non-existent music and take on weird glances as a challenge to put extra energy into it. We would light up to ridicule and laugh it off with this inner sass that I didn't know I had.

We partied, yelled, clapped and laughed like animals, but when it came down to it, we also brought each other cheap chicken soup when we were ill or hungover because it was the best that we could do. That is, on top of forcing one another to actually shut our eyes and rest up to get it to pass.

We had every bit figured out, and your smile being enough to cure me, just holding you close making me calm, I was certain of it. I was sure we had it made. I've been sitting patiently waiting for out 'breakfast in bed and early morning coffee with gentle kisses' type of day to come running around the corner.

Our golden time. When we would peak after making it as far as we did, we'd deserve it. 20th anniversary? 40th? 60th? I was so prepared for that. How could I not be after you've been there for me for so long already?

I'd love the lonesome out of you like I have been and I'd do if forever The pain, the downsides, the headaches and burns too. I'd do everything if I could, but look at me here, capable of being scared of letting you go and scared of letting you go only.

Look at me here learning that everything ends.

Including me. Including us.