Obliviate.

Science says that the human body can adapt under all circumstances; that, metaphorically speaking, it knows how to build a womb around itself and survive. Regardless of the change, it lives.

What I mean is, no panic attack can last longer than twenty minutes. And no matter how much it feels like your entire body is shutting down, you are not going to die.

What I mean is, no matter how absurd or prolonged your pain is, trust that your body is in the process of building a womb around itself and that you are not going to die.

See, I've turned my body into a temple. Divine, sacred, wholesome. I have grown familiar with every inch of my skin. Bone by bone, and breath by breath, I built my own womb from scratch. Crafted my name upon the walls and screamed my poetry into being. 

My body took root in this womb. And no matter how many times I woke up with this agonizing pain in my chest, I knew I was not going to die. 

Murphy's law states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

And over time, my temple is filled with cracks. But I see the streaks of light coming through and I am reassured. And so I consider it a testimony for how impossible it is for the cracks to kill me.

Now picture this: that temple of utter divinity, that is all I have, can no longer  endure any more cracks. I mean, even though I know the light is everywhere, it does not pass through my cracks. Heck, I can't even see the light.

What I mean is, my body is not in the process of building a womb around itself. It is not adapting, it is not surviving, for the love of God, it is in ruins.

Perhaps the problem is not that. Perhaps the problem is that after all, I am not going to die.

And so as time went on, I took shelter in an empty prescription bottle and suffered the atrocity of sobriety.

Because in an infinite universe of infinite dimensions, in a galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars and enough gas and dust to make a billion more stars, I exist, but only briefly.

Forget the name that I have crafted and erase the poetry that you've heard. For I have been disowned, and I have nothing left to be taken away from me.

One last letter. One last goodbye.

Dearest,
I have written over fifty letters to you, talking about how keen I was on letting go; how fond I was of finally detaching myself from you, and my previous failed relationship with him. I must've written fifty other letters to God, apologizing to Him for my failed relationship with Him, too.
The thing is, dearest, I was so keen on letting go, but never ready. The past five months, I was--and god knows I still am, in ruins.
It's like you're in me. Like you are a disease. Like I was infected by you.
You grew inside of me like a tumour, and my body was never ready to let you go.
And I spent one hundred fifty days thinking that you were meant to stay inside of me; scared that my body will be in a lingering state of panic, entirely shut down and eventually decay if I were to get you out of me.
But here's the truth, solemn and honest,
If I am to let you go--if I am to live without you in me, the process would go like this:
My body will indeed panic, as it has lived for what had seemed to me like a lifetime with you spreading inside of me like cancer, growing and feeding merely on my love and ache. My body will not be ready.
But I promise you this,
It won't shut down. It will take its time to adapt. No matter how weak, no matter how drowsy, no matter how drained and dreary it will be at first, it will dwell just fine. It will breathe without you.
Eventually, my dear, it will grow stronger. It will survive.
And I. I am still in ruins. But it has opened my eyes to this; that ruin is not a deficiency.
We all spend our lives running away from it, scared of how it might destroy our lives.
But the thing is, ruin is a gift. For everything ruined must build itself back up again.
We must always see ruin for what it is: the root of transformation; the root of change.
And from ruin, everything shall rise again, better, stronger, and taller.
Building a shelter out of ruin; out of the remains of your older self, is a gift.
So, yes, dearest. I am in ruins, and I am getting you out of me. I am changing, and I am finally prepared. 

Tonight is the night

Tonight is the night
I break my ribs open,
shall everything
staining, and straining
and weighing down
my very soul
bloom out of me
in a sequence of explosions.

Tonight is the night
I break my ribs open
to let you know that
in spite of everything,
darling,
I still believe in the root of you.
In spite of the haziness of
both you, and I
I have spoken of you
only in the name of love.
Inspite of your unsteady heart,
inspite of my stuttering kneecaps
and all my anxiety attacks
and my clumsy body
and my trembling hands
I love you.

Tonight is the night
I break my ribs open
to tell you that
you
are everything that is
staining and straining
and weighing down
my very soul,
shall you
bloom out of me
and shall you
cut the roots of you in me
for good
because you,
my darling,
are too gigantic an explosion
that I cannot
forever
hold closely to my heart.

Dear David

Dear David,
To wait for you to come home is to wait an eternity; both my heart and yours know better. You and I, we both deserve so much, but not one another. One day I clasp my fists so firmly and pray for you to crawl back to my embrace, the next I thank the lord you are no longer here to burn my insides to flame. I am sorry if it makes you seem like the bad guy.
It has been ninety-four days. Ninety fucking four.
Ninety-four days knowing that no Morphine but you will ever do. Ninety-four days and not even the fire inside my heart could keep me from shaking. Ninety-four days, my dearest and my beloved, my loveliest most tender lover, without you by my side.
God, I could have sworn that I have not slept for once because your empty side of the bed did not let me be. It was always haunting me that it was not in my power to have a single thought that was not you, or something that I wish I could reveal to you.
I am sorry; for I never told you that ever since, all my sunsets were devoid of color; that the absence of you is not the absence of ache, but the complete opposite.
Still I know, in my heart of hearts that we are not right for each other. That we are not thunder and lightning. That we, my dear David, are two different seasons. We repel.
Do you know what it's like to be the wrong person in the wrong place? Like burning sun in the midst of December, and crashing rain in August. Odd. Very odd. I think we were like that in each other's lives. It was only fair for someone to walk away from the other.
But in the days when I think that all my feelings have dried up, my pen starts writing words of grievance, in the loving memory of our love.
So  David, I beg you to teach me how to forgive you. I beg you to not haunt the rusted corners of my brain at 4 in the morning and keep me glued to my bed for what seems to be forever.
I beg you to teach me how to let go. Because I understand that you have used up all your strength to love me, and I was never easy to love.
Out of all the eulogies I have written for our love, my tears were the sincerest.
Goodbye, my David.
Yours, no longer,
Me.

It is summer. The sky is painted in the clearest shade of blue. Head over heart, I am all calm.
You walk me home every afternoon. Loving you is the only thing I've done right. I am sure. I am sure because you surround me with light. Your scent kissing me, your soul stuck to mine. Even if the heavens were grieving I wouldn't fucking mind.
Warmth, sweat, insanely in love with you. Every feeling in the universe, swiftly poured into me, I cocoon around the entirety of your skin. I am finally home, and nothing shall ever hurt me again.
I watch the light around me dim, ever so quickly in the winter. You slip from my hands, but I hold onto that last thin thread of what could ever be. The skies are bruised and all sounds are wrecked. I am left there as if I will never bloom again, for it feels like I am standing at the heaven's gate with an empty heart; standing at the open hands of god, and still admitting that I have got no home left.
But in the spring I promise to water myself again. I promise to not bathe myself in our sins. I promise to find a place in the sun for all that I've done.
I promise to find me another home, without our memories buried under the bed.

A prayer

Dear God. I have not spoken to you ever since it has ended. Presumably because what happened has deprived me of all the language I had within. But I am here, asking not for a miraculous change of events, asking not for a recurring nor an everlasting inconvenient fairytale to turn my world around, asking not for you to take me out of this dimension. I wouldn't ask for any of that, because I have this tendency of not asking for too much.
But God, I am stuck here. My lungs start collapsing at the dawning of every new day because I do not want to live through it. I do not merely want, but desperately and hopelessly need distance. So much of it.
God, I need room to breathe.
I need to be far; to not be trapped in this crowded city with all the noise and all the unsteadiness and all the people that make me feel like I don't belong.
I, dear God, need to wake up at a different place. A different space. Because every time I shut my eyes I see a life that I'm not living and a scene that I'm not a part of. I see a world that calls out for me, elsewhere.

Dear God of all gods, to the creator of the universe and you whom I call out for on my terribly silenced nights: the voice in me has become an echo of all the prayers I repeated before sleep, hoping to wake up to something different. The voice in me is cracking with the breaking of my own heart. My heart does not speak for itself anymore.
God, I need to escape. I need a place where the sun is not hiding, where the breeze is not followed with a storm, where there is serenity, where there is air, where there is me, light and diaphanous.
Take me out of here. I am begging and I am pleading, for there is no more light left in me. Can't you see?