Today was the first day I felt a familiar sadness shroud my sight until the skies seemed to reflect my clouded thoughts. I’ve been doing a good job of convincing everyone I’ve been able to keep my depression at bay; despite drinking every day and smoking cigarettes compulsively again. I come home with my hair and my breath and my fingertips stubbornly stained by the stench of my sins and crawl into bed, trying to immerse myself in a fantasy that transports me to sleep the second I sell myself such tall tales and believe that where I lay half-awake is the false reality.
Lately, this mirage hasn’t been working and I’ve been struggling with insomnia after lying to the one person who has cared to treat me like a human being this whole winter. He traced the scars on my wrists with such understanding, without a trace of the customary pity, that I didn’t flinch at his touch and instead settled into a place more comfortable than I ought to have felt with a casual stranger.
He asks me, “Have you eaten today?” “Did you get home safe?” “Are you sure you should be drinking so much?” “You’re ok, right?”
He wears his heart so plainly on his sleeve that my own chest collapses with the contrast of how different he is from you.
You only ask me if I’m eating out of obligation and no amount of carefully worded inquiries can infiltrate the intentional insouciance you hide behind. You don’t care how much I drink or how I get home or if I’m eating alone. You touch me with such impassivity that I have to clench my fists to keep myself from responding disproportionately. You’re so aloof that I didn’t realize how foolish my illusions were until I stumbled across someone who likes me, unlike you.
My heart aches in acknowledgement about how apathetic I feel towards someone who cares about me so sincerely; suddenly sympmathizing with how you must feel when your hands graze mine and I retract with a startle while you stare in inquiring incomprehension. I realize now that I have absolutely no effect on you; in the same way he ran his fingers along my wrists and brushed the cigarette ash off my shoulders and I just pulled my coat tighter around myself without a second thought of our interaction.
Today was a difficult day in which the daily dreams I endeavor to exist within were all too transparently an illusion and the smiles I always shower you with felt too insincere to sustain.
I allowed myself to be honest about how hard it’s been; wanting you to ask, “Have you eaten? “Did you get home safe?”
You saw the undiluted despair in my eyes, telling me not to be so hard on myself, and yet didn’t bother to say – “Are you ok?”
I couldn’t look at you without wanting to cry so I ran into the street and chainsmoked cigarettes, instantly realizing that quitting isn’t a promise I can keep, scrambling to keep my eyes from growing empty and my heart from growing hollow because that’s the most dangerous place I can be around these sleepless streets and a frameless floor to ceiling window on the twenty-third floor.
I wandered foreign avenues aimlessly for a few hours – my eyes wide and blank, my thoughts in tandem – smoking intermittently whenever I needed a palpable reminder that I was still alive. I felt so tired and my body was in so much pain but mostly I just felt exhausted from trying this hard, thinking this much.
It’s dark now and I’m going to bed soon and I know you know how early I sleep so I’ve officially given up on hearing from you.
What hurts more than your indifference is knowing how instantly he would’ve responded, had he known about my bad day. He would’ve dropped everything to walk on my right as a buffer between my mindless body and the careless traffic. He would’ve lit each of my cigarettes in a pained effort at chivalry before inevitably smoking more than he should in synchrony with me. He would’ve immediately ascertained the look in my eyes and instinctively sympathized in a way that wouldn’t make me feel embarrassed or exposed. He would’ve recognized his reflection in my regret and unselfconsciously shared it in silence.
From the first day we met, I’ve known he has his days too.
I shared as much of myself as I could in the short seconds full of possibility between us just yesterday; presuming that by revealing it all, you’d finally be able to see me as a woman. I had so much I wanted to tell you; things I had rehearsed all night and memorized in the morning, unable to keep myself from smiling as I did my makeup in the mirror while thinking of seeing you soon.
But when I finally saw your face, I felt so fucking stupid. What the fuck was I doing to myself, all over again, smoking cigarettes and falling in unrequited love as though I were fifteen and not almost thirty?
I saw myself the way you do; flighty, full of excuses, overly emotional, and constantly inconsistent. I can’t believe I thought unraveling my unadulterated heartache might make you feel protective over me, rather than exasperated. I can’t believe I thought you would witness my widening eyes and palpable despair and feel something human in you. I can’t believe I waited for you to save me, for you to tell me that you’d be right there, for you to follow me outside as I lit my infinith cigarette and care enough to coerce me into quitting. I can’t believe I thought this was different from the last time, the one-sided love I nursed for six years in the same way my eyes are filled with a different version of you from the truth.
All I wanted to was spark the static shock from your fingers when your skin makes contact with mine. I wanted to see the same thinly-veiled hunger in your eyes before you abashedly avoid my gaze. I wanted to feel the mirrored magnetism my gut masks when there’s inches between us and I have to fight to span that space with a single inappropriate step. I wanted to be more than a serial novelist spinning fairy tales out of impossible misperceptions.
I can’t help but compare you to him; that constant perpetuation of mild interest that makes me run towards you at a mile a minute. But the second I toe the gap between you and I, it widens into an impassable chasm – you’re entertained by me, but not enough that you take me seriously.
Eventually I’ll become nothing more than a lovelorn girl leaving you drunk voicemails at 3AM that you habitually ignore with no guilt after growing too exhausted to deal with composing emotionally-warranted responses.
I thought it was time to open myself up to vulnerability, but I forgot I’m incapable of compartmentalizing parts of myself until it’s too late and I fall apart at the sight of your smile or your slighted silence. It’s my turn to take imperceptibly small steps backward until I’ve matched your safe distance instead of teetering on the edge alone while everyone else watches in disbelief.
I’m tired of being a spectacle, I’m sick of being a one woman circus.
I’m tired of being called brave because I followed through on something you were too afraid to do.
I’ll keep myself to myself; be it saving him from heartache or protecting myself from the likes of you.
Every time I’m foolish enough to forget, I’m reminded again and again of why I eat all my meals alone.
noted things 