I think this is it. I think this is finally it. Do it. The wall we built— so cracked, it’s barely standing and you get to throw the final strike. Do it. Let this be the end of it. Tear down the wall I plastered with my sweat, my blood, my devotion, my denial, everything I was, everything I had left. Tear down the wall that held every hope, every what-if, every should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. Throw one final blow, and that’s it. Let the bricks rain down on my body. Let them break my jaw, crush my spine, fracture my ribs for I am only— a small price you have to pay. A collateral damage too insignificant to notice. Break me until each neuron in my body stops screaming your name. Make me feel nothing. Turn me into nothing. And maybe, by then, you will be nothing too. Or so I wish.
They say grief never really leaves. It stays, like the scar on your knee after falling off a bike, like the stain on your favorite white T-shirt. They say you grow around grief, but after three hundred thirteen days, grief evolves. Grief used to knock at midnight. Now it barges through my door at seven in the morning. It waits for me— in the bathroom mirror, slips into the ten quiet minutes I spare before getting ready for work. It swallows me whole as I brush my teeth, wash my face, scrub a body that still carries your scent I cannot rub off. Grief has rusted the edges of my hair straightener, leaves me with a screeching sound that burns into my ears with the question: does it matter being pretty on days you don’t see me? Grief strikes at seven, primes my face with tears, and holds me hostage until eight. Three hundred thirteen days, I’ve learned how to dodge the grief that crawls under my blanket before I sleep. But I still don’t know how to escape the kind that comes at s...
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy. I write about you less and less. Most days, I just let the words sit with me for minutes, sometimes hours, as I drive through the streets still stained with your name. I think about you and then I forget. With enough distractions, enough someone elses, months later, what once was an open wound is now just a bruise. The kind you forget is there but still hurts when you touch it. They didn’t lie, time heals after all. So maybe the worst is over. Even if some nights, I still catch myself awake past midnight wondering where’s that one piece of me that went missing and never came back. But still, don’t get me wrong, I am happy. Even if happy doesn’t mean whole and definitely doesn’t mean complete. Maybe all of this is just my way of saying I miss you. And what a terrifying thought it is to still miss you after a year or two or five or ten. What a terrifying thought it is to keep moving forward without ever finding the strength to move on from...
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