still breathing

He came out of the bathroom to find her pulling off the sheets and replacing them with new ones. He knew she didn’t realize it, but he took more notice of her than he realized. She climbed into bed, and he followed her lead. He pulled out his book to do some reading as she lay on her back staring at the ceiling. The routine was pretty set in this way. Every night she counted down the seconds until he turned the light off and left her to fend for herself in the dark. He gently kissed her good night and reached over to cut the light off, and she exhaled slowly with her eyes tightly shut to try and focus on the light that would come back in the morning. Hours passed and the fight was becoming harder and harder. She was certain that he was sound asleep, as she made her way down to the floor beside the bed. Her body frozen with fear, she turned to face the window. She couldn’t help but wonder if this would ever end, or if maybe she should just give up on the hope that things would change.

He noticed. This was the routine for her. Every night around the same time he would feel the sheets move and without her knowing, he had watched for the past few weeks as she grabbed her pillow and made herself at home on the floor. And every morning he would find her back in bed beside him. But he was no fool. His eyes followed her as she quietly hit the floor and the sound made his heart shatter. He couldn’t let another night pass by like this.

As her thoughts began to occupy every ounce of her head, she felt his arms around her. His body was pressed against hers, and it left her dumbfounded. He had left the comfort of his bed and found her. Pulling her towards him, he covered her with his arms. They lay there in silence. She couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t questioning her. Nor was he disgusted with her. What was wrong with him? Did he not see her for what she was? She couldn’t verbalize the thoughts and questions that were occupying her head, but they came out instead, in the form of salty tears. Tears that had fallen night after night, alone. He pulled her closer and she could feel his heartbeat. “I want a new heart” she whispered into the darkness. A moment of more silence and she felt his tears hit her neck at the same rate that hers hit the pillow. She felt him take a deep breath and respond, “I love the one you already have.”

The days began to go by even faster, as if they secretly knew that the night time is what she dreaded. She kept herself busy. There was always something to do, someone to see or something to take care of. Better to be consumed with the things around her than to allow herself to become trapped inside her own head. There were moments where she saw glimpses of hope. She would hear a baby giggle in the grocery store, or steal a smile from a stranger. For a moment, these things reminded her that things could be okay. But they were short-lived, for she lacked the strength to keep them alive for very long. She didn’t know how to force such a feeling anymore. Reality was becoming strangely blurred with what could be or should be. She felt the pull inside of her as her heart was tugged in two different directions, raging a war that never seemed to rest. She felt it, but she refused to show it. Not while it was daylight at least. Now while anyone could see.

She was only fooling herself. He saw her all along. The more she tried to cover it up, the more transparent it was to him. He watched her from a distance as she went about her day to day. His insides violently ripped to pieces as he watched her tireless effort. Every once in a while he would catch her eye but would find hers shifting directions to avoid his. She briskly walked up to him to give him a firm hug as to advert any suspicion before she headed out the door once again. “Thank God he can’t see,” she thought to herself.   He held on a little longer than she wanted and as she pulled away he lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “If only she could see…” he thought as her eyes moved on from his and she rushed out the door praying that she could uphold her makeshift strengh.

The nights continued in this pattern for weeks. Some of the battles weren’t as bad as the night before. But other battles left her more defeated than ever. The soreness in her back was a firm reminder of the physical wounds she was enduring from the war raged within. The sunlight was no longer quite as bright as it had been before. The brightest of days didn’t seem to have the healing power that they used to. Making her way into the bedroom, he watched as she started to unmake the covers. His heart raced whenever she entered the room. It sometimes kept him awake, watching her sleep.

 As she climbed into bed, he pulled her up gently before she could hit the mattress. Pulling her close to his chest, her body cringed in pain as his hand pressed firmly on her back. His eyes demanded an explanation, so she responded with a quick justification that her back muscles were just sore. He held her gaze for a moment and gracefully laid her back in bed. Removing his hand from underneath her head, he quietly whispered “I love you” in her ear before crawling over her onto his side of the bed. Little did he know that those were the words that she would cling to and replay again and again in her head while she endured the long night ahead.

And night came as quickly as she prayed that it wouldn’t. The sun did her heart some good. It reminded her that the darkest part of her wouldn’t last, because sunlight was inevitable. However, when nightfall came she never seemed to be prepared. Staring at the ceiling and watching the blades of the fan in motion were her only hope for a distraction. Sleep never came easy on nights like these.  She had given up trying to figure out why, and instead opted to simply trying to endure what she knew could no longer be avoided. She rolled over to face the wall, hoping that he didn’t notice her restlessness. She closed her eyes and prayed that exhaustion would take over and force her heart to slow down. Instead, her thoughts raced even quicker and she could feel his body roll right beside hers as he locked his arms around her. She held her breath in effort to force the thoughts out of her head, but they had already made their way down south to make themselves at home in her heart. She attempted to keep her breathing in rhythm with his, but found herself even unworthy of that.

He must have not realized what we he was sleeping next to. Because if he did, surely he would know better than to touch such filth. She took pride in her ability to fool those closest to her. Above all else, at least her dignity was being preserved when everything else held no gurantee. Trying not to wake him, she slipped out from his embrace and made her way to the floor beside the bed. It was the place she had grown accustomed to. Curled up with nothing but a blanket of fear and a pillow of doubt to rest her head on, she continued her fight for sleep. For she knew that the very touch of him and his body next to hers left her feeling desperately exposed and naked of the internal mess that she was. So she assumed her usual position. On the floor. Below him. Where she belonged.

The sting had set in and she couldn’t make it stop. She probably couldn’t escape it even if she wanted to.  Caught in the center of in between, she was straddling the fence with her inconsistency. If surrender had a face, she couldn’t recognize it. Nor would she be able to look it dead in the eye.  Words lacked the adequacy but if they had the power, she would write a lifetime of them but would end up erasing every one of them. By the next day, yesterday’s words would scream regret. What good are pages of meaningless phrases? Just as she was fighting the battle to simply believe a truth that sounded too good to be true, she had learned that her thoughts could not be trusted either. They lacked that kind of credibility and she was not sure if they would ever gain it back. Or if they had it to begin with. She had begun to wonder if the good of it all really existed, and if the truth she woke up for every morning even stood a chance against the lies in her head. This wasn’t a foreign land to her, but my God, she wished it was. This battle was bringing more exhaustion than hope, and she was no longer certain if victory was even an option in such a damn bloody war.

The chains weren’t so easy to break. And for whatever reason she was starting to get used to them being there. She had spent so much time coming to terms with the fact that maybe freedom just wasn’t for her, that she had lost all hope that there could be another way. She had her moments of course. But fleeting, they were. She found herself living just for those moments, and anxiously anticipating the arrival of the next one. Sometimes they were so far and few in between that it would become more than she could handle. Holding her breath just became a part of her routine, but she was beginning to forget what she was holding it for.

When she didn’t feel like fighting to remember, she uncrossed her arms just long enough to let the dark creep in again. Her arms were anything but outstretched; but were instead pulled tightly behind her back. She felt there was nothing worth holding onto, so instead of exhausting herself to find a refuge, she found her place with her hands tied behind her back. For this moment, she was agreeing with the darkness. For this moment, it attracted a part of her that she was willing to compromise. Nobody needed to find her there, and she tired of trying to make herself believe that somebody would come along and change that. There was no need to waste her tears on something that maybe just wasn’t for her. Her prayers for deliverance were no more; for she feared that she would just be delivered into a new set of chains inside of a different darkness with a different name.

You’re not as hard as you think you are. Inside that warm body are you really breathing? Because it seems to me that you’re so busy maintaining your walls that you’re forgotten how to be human. Sometimes I wonder if you hear me at all. You with your arms crossed around your heart and that smirk across your face as if it doesn’t phase you at all. Come on, baby. What line are you going to throw my way this time? You like to think your vague remarks keep me curious of your mystery. I think in all your relentless efforts to keep me wondering, you’ve lost yourself.  Things get a bit hazy when you’re always busy covering your tracks, don’t they? Curious of you I am, not of what you’re hiding, but where you’re hiding. I’m not oblivious. Maybe you’re as naïve as you think I am. I cannot begin to count how many times I have rolled over to find your cold pillow and sheets. Where do you slip off to every night? I can feel you untangle your arms around me, but I know you’re tangled up somewhere else. Don’t talk at me with your clever one liners. Come on baby, I don’t want your bullshit. I want you.