My dear broken self,
Hi (whispers), I know you’re in there. There is no need for you to hide anymore. Here, take my hand, my, you’re so cold, yes almost there, come step out into the light. No, I’m not going to put the blinds on. What is it? Yes, I am finally acknowledging you. You see I have realized that being broken is okay. That is how the light gets in. Of course, it will take some time for you to get accustomed to the brightness. Me too.
Frankly, I have been ignoring your existence for as long as I remember like you’re an ominous spirit but you’re not. I know it took me too long to accept that you are a part of me. You are me. I am you. We are broken. I am broken.
Not the romanticised version shamelessly glorified in the captions of oodles of pictures floating around on Facebook and Instagram. Not like my muse who would inspire my art or ignite my creative spirit but more in a way that I am drowning or burning. both At the same time. Burnt and drowning. The burden of my existence weighing me down to the seabed.
You run your thumb over your rough edges contemplating how much harder you can press before it slices your skin like muslin cut neatly into pieces for its dexterity in stitching your superhero suit. Your armour. You don’t leave the house without it anymore.
You’ve weaved your cocoon with the loose strings from every failed relationship. A pretty rainbow with the scarlet dyed with the lost love, parakeet green with your envious brooding, canary yellow with your eccentricities and a dark blue with the dying light of a flickering candle.
The thorns as the mistakes in your life now embellish your fort wall. The moat around it reeks of disappointment and betrayal. You are now familiar with that scent to the extent that it feels homely.
You trudge past the deserted streets of what was a flourishing town inside you once. Now all abandoned almost in haste, as if by the cause of some natural catastrophe, uprooting the entire settlement. What remains is a ghost town. Empty buildings, empty blocks, empty roads.
You who left a “ You “ shaped hole in me.
As you take all your pieces and try to make meaning out of them by arranging into a jigsaw puzzle but you figure out that they won’t fit. You see some of them have gone missing. The Rubik’s cube can’t be solved as gaping holes stare at you from places where there used to be the coloured blocks.
I have peeked at you lying down on your back with a lousy finger at the stars, connecting them like dots spelling D E S P A I R.
You’re a puppet, with strings attached and pulled by the information you've acquired from a duly memorized manual of how to behave in certain common social settings and situations. “Oh thank you, yes, please. Smile, nod, repeat.”
Stale breath with repeated pleasantries.
You’re spending a lot of time by yourself lately. Alone time. However, I see that you’ve started to stray into the other side. You scout around the boundary of ‘alone’ before crossing to the pool of loneliness where you lose your way and seldom return. I have seen that it gives you a warm snuggly feeling of comfort to succumb into the abyss.
You feel uneasy. A strange quivering sensation swallowing the entire body with a whirlpool emanating from the belly, feasting on your normal body mechanisms, to grow into a tornado rising up. I rush to the washroom. A gag reflex, a forward jerk in the neck, (gag reflex) huh…no vomiting. Again. False alarms again.
Nothing comes out.
Not even the tears anymore. They too have dried up. I hear the tear glands were rescued from the flooded areas as the water level had risen beyond the danger level.
I have forgotten the trails of dampness running down my cheeks and their salty taste kissing the corners of my lips.
Smeared mascara like the hollow dungeons deep and dark where once your eyes would light up like the crackling fire in a cozy barn on a frosty night.
I think it is time for me to change my mirror. You see, it is not my reflection staring back at me anymore. OR maybe its time to change myself.
To complete myself by accepting you.
I, that is you and me, are okay. This is okay.
See, we’re even warmer now
Now let’s stop loathing in self-pity for you see,
I have mountains to move, and absolutely no time to lose
So what if I’m broken, who isn’t?
Interesting.
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