still breathing

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.