describing my normal
Trying too hard to preserve life, we tore our skins. We
were dysfunctional, faithful to all definitions of disorders, or as she liked
to say, "Chaos Exhibit A." Waiting for our springs to bloom life.
We lose sleep over our mind's days of slumber, seldom
slender than the line between reality and fiction. We've fictionalised every
moment to the point where we cannot recognise it for what it is. We see a
filter block our eyes so much that we need it to see clearly. We've adapted to
darker colours and normal people. They just don't see it. The flimsy cover that
hides what has decayed inside.
We’re different. We’re the same. We’re broken. We’re
hurting. Not in vain.
I'm spending nights writing letters to the broken, hoping
they'd mend, and I'm spending days destroying the letters after reading them
and failing to fix myself. The clockwork has been jammed beyond repair, and
replacement costs more sacrifice than what the world accepts. The price for a
reset is more than my capacity for going on, and I cannot pay for both.
But the band-aids haven't dried. The phone hasn't died. I
hear a voice at the other end screaming my name and I am beginning to hate my
name in newer ways, hoping they'd forget it sooner, but they think screaming
more will break my silence.
My hesitation does not count as communication for them. They
want answers that are easy, that they can comprehend. My tongue cannot afford
them. It dries in the silence, feeling too heavy tonight.
My throat has more lumps than I expected, because now the
weather is cold and my head colder. I feel like screaming but my ears are used
to my silence. They don't question it. They don't lament it. They don't scream
back. They just fall back numb, and let me drown, let me lose balance and fall
again, and again, and again until I'm not hurting just somewhere, only
everywhere.
I do not want death. I don't seek it. I do not ask for it. I
merely want to sleep without my sleepless slumbers of reality. I just want to
let hope grow, without me cutting myself up thrice just to see myself smile.
I just want life to breathe before breathing can be called
living.
I want to be, and not just be.
describing my normal
Written by Yash Raj Talan
[note to self: you have never cut yourself. don't.]
