Inside Her Head

Besides the faint glow of a street lamp, her room was smothered in darkness, and anybody looking in would easily miss the small heap of flesh on the floor. She lay crumpled up on the cold, hard ground and screamed silently as the hot tears seared the carpet beneath her. Every now and then, her fist pounded the floor, an unconscious protest against emotions altogether. But all that truly remained was the black. The silence. And herself.

She hated being like this. She felt so feeble and useless. A waste of space and time, simply existing on earth only to collapse into a dystopian phase every other week or so. And all for what? She'd ask herself. She's yet to find out, but until then, she decided, just go through the damned motions.

She'd been like this for almost three hours now, and just as she thought her eyes would turn white, the tears began to slowly subside. She gingerly lifted herself up and leaned against the wall. She held her head and groaned as a heavy ache passed behind her swollen eyes. Besides the aftermath of her crying, she felt her breathing ease up a little. It's a good sign, she managed to calculate. But at the rate her fingers trembled, she knew that hours remained until she was safe.

An hour had gone by and although the night sky had deepened its hue, she felt slightly calmer. She reached out in the dark for her water bottle and took the longest sip. She allowed the liquid to settle in the deepest and driest crevices of her throat, and made a silent prayer of thanks, for her only source of comfort in that moment was what swished around gently inside a plastic bottle. Comfort—she had. But hope—she needed. The things she could do, she thought, if hope stayed close by.

She would get to work immediately, sifting through her mind in search of her anchor. She'd open and close boxes, some would overflow with embarrassing moments, others, nights like this and some just filled with a hollow blackness, threatening to suck her in and cloak her every inch. This was her reality, she acknowledged. But she'd try so hard at each box, and scrunch her face in concentration. She'd chant the words of her therapist like a slow and steady mantra.

*You need an anchor Anaya, you need to find something to hold onto when nothing else seems tangible.*

So she'd surf harder for something to pull her out of the dark. Twenty years of being alive, she couldn't possibly return empty-handed. One small thing to make her feel safe again, she'd find it in the depths of her mind. And she'd keep at it until warm bolts of light trace the edges of her thoughts.

She'd keep at it...

The rude patter of raindrops interrupted her fantasy, and just like that, she was no longer surrounded by the promise of a bright flame. It seemed the darkness had made a vow to never leave her side, and the rain only hardened its blow by the second.

It was a funny thing, her mind. Because sometimes she loved the rain, and its homely aroma as each drop slammed itself into the dry earth. And she would fix a warm mug of anything she fancied and sit by the window, watching as the raindrops raced each other down the glass panels. But other times, the rain was like a bad omen. Sometimes it made the nights lonelier and colder than one could bear. And tonight, she decided, was one where the rain was feeling malicious.

Her tongue toyed with the word hope until it stopped sounding like a real word. Tears began to fill the corners of her eyes as she understood that tonight, hope was not in search of her. She gently lay her head back on the floor, and let the tears roll on out for the third time that night.