One more day

The only way out is through,
I tell myself over and over,
trying to drill the fact into my brain.
The only way out is through,
I say as I soldier on,
one foot in front of the other;
one more year, one more month,
one more week, one more day.
One more day.
One more day.
The pile I carry on my back gets bigger, heavier
it gets more insistent, more demanding,
it shifts and stretches
until I no longer just carry it,
my whole existence is controlled by it,
it shifts and stretches,
I recoil and drawback until I'm no longer my own
One more day.
One more day.
If anything I've become a phantom
pulled around by a thread that only gets thinner,
an empty shell of a person who used to be something
but no longer is.
The incessant thoughts in my head keep pushing and pulling,
they swarm around me like ravenous animals,
waiting for their prey,
like waves breaking on the shore,
they never stop.
I move in the world precariously,
the simplest things have become incomprehensible,
words and sentiments go through me,
unfathomable and distant.
I've become fluent in ways to desensitize myself,
my drawers and cupboards are always full,
with one substance or another,
as long as my mind is numb.
Bitterness comes easy
when all I can think of is
the years stolen from me,
the days I've spent confined and silenced,
Breathing, on the other hand, is not an easy feat
when claustrophobia looms over me,
like a heavy concrete cage,
in the most open spaces.
My body shuts down,
my lungs threaten to collapse,
"if we don't get out soon we're doomed",
they both declare.
One more day.
One more day.
I tell myself,
the only way out is through.

To Tom (9)

I'd say that this is one of my less graceful letters and it's also one I've been too scared to write. I guess you do get braver as time goes by. I've always avoided using the word lonely in any letter, any conversation; I tiptoe by the word cautiously, circle around it like a potential threat, I make sure never to use it as a description of myself. If you get to close, it bites. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really scared of loneliness; I've known lonely, I've been lonely, I lay down my weapons and sleep next to it every night, it doesn't scare me. It doesn't scare me as long as it's unpronounced, because saying it is an open and public declaration that I "need" someone and that is a place of vulnerability I absolutely refuse to step into. I know you frown on my constant flight from vulnerability and I know you think of me as too proud. Maybe I am. Believe me, Tom, I've tried to be like you; open, vulnerable, graceful even in turmoil, but I'm not built like that. I'm built for the graceless disarrayed quiet. The one you brush by, scrunch your nose at and never stay. You hold your breath until you're well out of sight, then you breathe right again. I know you can see through me so I won't tell you I've made my peace with it. I haven't really made peace with anything, but I repeat like a mantra, over and over again, trying to manifest it into existence. "That which we manifest is before us", I tell myself through the disquiet. That which we manifest is before us. Hoping it's true. Hoping I can be light. If one thing remains ceaseless, it's that I look to you for the light I do not have within me. And it perseveres.

Yours always,

To Ada,

I'm still hung up on our last conversation. I've accepted the fact that love doesn't really make sense a long time ago; there's no science behind it, no rationale. I think I've tried it all; sheer pragmatism where one plus one must equal two, where everything is measured, precise, calculated to the last bit, but I've realized that I can't be a pragmatic lover. I've realized I'm not a romantic either (I can see you shaking your head in disapproval, we'll see eventually). I'm not quite sure which part of the scale I fit on. Now that I think of it, I don't really mind not knowing.  I've been the classic cliche of waiting for love and you know it, but I think I've been going about it all wrong. I've tried waiting, chasing, not wanting, pretending to not want it, the whole bunch. It obviously hasn't worked, and a year ago that would have caused me a great deal of distress. Now I think of it with much more ease, and maybe I've learned that from her. Braver, a bit softer, and more open. That's what I'm trying to be for the time being, and it's partly why I'm writing to you at the moment. I'm letting go of any preconceived notion I've ever had of love, if it comes, I'll try to embrace it (we both know I have trouble with that), and if it doesn't, I'll still witness it everywhere around me, and embrace the beauty of it, and the absolute chaos. Write to me, I really enjoy our conversations. I hope love adorns you soon.

Yours always,

To Tom (8)

Do you ever think about how mesmerizing and ever so scary a pause is? A pause, yes. I know what you're thinking, I am getting too caught up in minute things all over again, but hear me out. You know when you're about to get bad news? There's always this pause that says something horrible is about to come; and if you think about it, this fraction of a minute of silence is always more excruciating than whatever horrifying thing you're about to hear next. I've been directing a lot of my attention towards language lately and I've realized it's not just the words that make up a language. A smile, a shrug, a blink, or two, or a _pause_ are sometimes more weighty than a whole dictionary. Do you ever think about what it means? And how much this space one chose me to leave empty weighs? It's always this pause before someone decides to say I love you, or the pause before they say I am sorry, or the pause after they say "I love you, but.." Time stretches into infinity and seconds move like lumbering boulders, unbearably heavy, unbearably slow. Your pauses always scared me most, when you paused I always had this urge to take your brain out and dissect it, I wanted so badly to know what's on your mind because your silence always scared me. I knew you, _I know you_. Your mind is never at ease, it's always grinding, going back and forth, every word means something, the smallest gesture to you is bigger than the universe and that terrified me. Still, I'd take any silence of yours, any pause over a thousand words that anyone else has to say. Write to me sometimes? It's not just silence that's excruciating, I miss you.

Yours always,

To Nick (2)

Someone was talking to me about being in love with life, and I remembered you. I think I've been falling back in love a little with life lately, but I hadn't realized that until that person told me. She said it with a passion I rarely see with anyone, and it's the kind of passion that's contagious. When you light a firework, there's always this tiny spark that jumps out first before it's actually afire; that's how I felt then; like this tiny spark has jumped out, grabbed me, and ignited me. What struck me is that it's not anything grand; it's not about how the stars align, or the beautiful sunsets, or even being in love with a person. She said it comes to her in the mundanest of moments, like listening to a song with someone in the car. You don't necessarily like the song, it's actually a really bad song, but you're alive, and the person next to you is alive and it all feels into place. Years later, you'd look back and remember that one bad song in a car with someone you love. It's enticing and awe-inspiring. Life is still one huge mystery to me; it's excruciating and tender, it's beautiful and gruesome. And I am not here to contemplate it. However, I believe that in between all of those moments, those tiny flashes of time, there's this one spark that grabs you and compels you to fall in love with it. I've been getting a lot of those lately despite the uncertainty. It seems so unfamiliar, like something so distant, perhaps that's why I did not realize it. It still fills me with so much gratitude and serenity, and I thought that I'd like to keep this, as a reminder maybe, that it's not all bad, it's not all excruciatingly gruesome or lonely or confusing, even if it's something as short and fleeting as a moment, I'd still like to hold on to it. That's why I came to you, please keep this for me, and for you. Let this be our "Hey Jude".

Yours always,

To Tom (7)

Mama, take this badge off from me
I can't use it anymore
It's getting dark, much too dark to see
Feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door

Dear Tom,
It pains me to write this, it pains me both physically and emotionally. What follows is not going to be pleasant to read (and believe me it's the farthest thing from pleasant to write) so forgive the mess. I am trying to blurt it out before I lose the small bit of bravery I have right now.
I have so much to say, and I am not sure exactly how to articulate. I am merely writing this for documentation's sake, I haven't been writing for the sake of writing since forever and just the thought of it makes me sick to the bone. It brings me so much shame, and you're the only one I can open myself up to.
Shame. An emotion that has become too familiar,  I know every twist, every turn, because the road always leads me there. I am so ashamed of myself,  I get sick of the skin I am wearing and of everything that goes on within. I am just... tired. Yesterday I accidentally cut myself and I reveled in the pain, like I deserved it. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, hurting myself, my fingers itching to claw at the skin where my veins rest, my knuckles straining under the weight of me denying them the right to inflict pain on the body that holds them. I thought it was a moment's thought, that it will just go away when I am calmer, but I don't trust myself anymore.
I almost crashed my car today, my head was buzzing with thoughts I couldn't drown out even with the music at maximum. Everything was a haze and I couldn't help myself, I almost did it. I wanted the crash, I wanted my bones to ache and then I wanted it all to stop. Cease. But I didn't. I am anchored and it's the only thing that's keeping me here and it makes me so angry. So angry because I want everyone anchoring me to just let me go, I do not want to think of anyone's pain, and I want mine to cease. Anger. I never thought I'd have so much anger; it's like everything I've been feeling has hardened and just turned angry.

There's a ghost on the horizon
When I go to bed
How can I fall asleep at night
How will I rest my head?

My mom told me I lost so much weight I look like a ghost, I smile sarcastically, I don't tell her that for six days the only meal I had was breakfast. I am not sleeping much either, the nights stretch agonizingly and sometimes I can't go through them on my own. I am not sure how much longer I can linger. I am not looking for anything here, I won't ask you to send light my way this time, because I don't want it. I just want everything to drop dead. I'd rather you not write me back either. It'll make me feel less pitiful, and I know we've agreed that pity has no place between us, so let's not give it one now. How's your book coming out? I am sending you all the bits of light I have left, as always.

Yours forever,

To Nick

Dear Nick,
Do you know how some people say that writing in your second language is a lot easier than writing in your mother tongue? Well the theory goes like this: Writing in a language that is not your mother tongue lays a distance between you and the words, like you're standing behind a glass wall and your words are on the other side. You've never lived through these words, you know what they mean, but only from a distance. Your mother tongue, on the other hand, knows you inside out. She knows everything you feel, everything you go through, and even if she doesn't have the words for it, she knows you better than any other language. Because you see, language is not just some letters that are attached together to give you a certain meaning, language is culture, it's memories and scents and love letters. But here's the problem; English is not my first language, but it's become too familiar that i feel like the words strip me bare whenever i approach them. I become too vulnerable whenever i hold a pen in my hand and you know how much i hate vulnerability. I hate the idea of being exposed like an open wound bleeding for all to see. And for a while English has managed to hide that vulnerability to some extent. But now i feel like English knows me better than my mother tongue and it's very inconvenient for me. That's why i have decided to move on to another language, another hide-out, and hope the words can still give me shelter. Et je pense que le français est celui pour moi. I know you're thinking this is absolutely bizarre and that i should find something better to do with my time instead of think about these things. But what can we do? We are who are. Anyhow, i miss you, and i hope you're well. I know you hate the winter, so i hope  this letter finds you warm.

Yours always,

To Tom (6)

Dear Tom,
I don't quite know how to start this. I know. I've been away for too long, and my departure has been cruel and inexplicable. Forgive me. I miss you. I can see you rolling your eyes and to be quite sincere, i am smiling a little at the sight of your face. I've always managed to exasperate you. And you've always managed to tolerate me like no one would. Like no one can. I miss you. The words seem tasteless and inadequate because they are. Because compared to how i feel they're a tiny speck of dust. I've ached for you. I still do, even when i am writing this. Tom, i swear there were days when i wanted to split my heart open on these papers just to get you, but i couldn't. I'd start my letters and my hands would freeze, everything would stand still. The words flee and i am left with nothing but shame. I have no explanation. And I know you ask for none. You know me like the back of your hand, even better I'd say. My days haven't been kind. They're all the same; soulless, tasteless and so very tedious. I always feel like i am running after something, and running away from something. The nights haven't been light either. All my distractions fade and i am left alone with myself which we both know is not the best situation. Tonight, i am feeling quite alright. I was smoking a cigarette in my balcony and Bob Dylan whispered quietly, "the sky is changing colour and i must leave fast." It made me yearn for you and how you're always  whispering "Lightly, lightly, lightly." Dearest Tom, please forgive me. You've always been patient with me. I don't know why, but if there's one thing that i can ask of you (and believe me, it's not without utter shame) is that you'd let this patience prevail. Don't let your heart harden, Tom because if it wasn't for the mere thought of you, I'd have gone mad already. Je pense toujours à toi and how you always held me lightly, quietly.

Love always,

To Tom (5)

Dear Tom,
I know I ended my last letter on a very distressing note, and I am sorry. It's kind of absurd that I put you through this with no adequate explanations, and I quite honestly don't know how (or why) you put up with me, but let me tell you, if there's one thing that keeps me from going utterly and irreversibly mad, it'd be the thought of you reading my words.
I've been struggling with myself a lot lately, and I am so worn out I made peace with things I shouldn't make peace with. One of them is the reason why I am writing you this. I am half a person, Tom. It makes me sick. I am always there, but not quite. I am half a friend, half a lover, just half everything. Even writing makes me sick these days because the only faint connection I have with being a writer is these letters and they've become battered and worn and purposeless and I am sick of it and all my attempts at being something more. I've made my peace. I am here to tell you I've made my peace with not being whole. I have nothing to claim, and no person to call my own and in a sense it's serene. I am not here to grief because I've decided that this won't be how I end things between us. Yes, end. I've decided that I will no longer send letters, and I will no longer call you my own, because you, Tom, cannot settle for half a person. I can hear you cursing me under your breath now, I can hear all kinds of things, but you understand me better than most, and you know that this is what I have to do. You cannot settle for someone who's not here nor there, I won't let you. So this is where we part ways, dearest Tom, I will be leaving you here, with all the light I have to give, and I will only ask of you to think of me with the same light I think of you. I know you won't rest, but you also know I won't budge, so for the sake of both of us, do not send me any letters, I will not open them. This is a road I have to walk on my own, so all I ask of you is just to think of me with grace.

Yours always,

To Tom (4)

Dear Tom,
I've thought of a lot of ways to start this, I've been staring at my screen for exactly 2 hours, my brain buzzing and my stomach in knots. If you haven't noticed already, I haven't been writing, not out of lack of words, but because I am scared. And when I say I haven't been writing I mean whenever I "think" of sitting down and letting anything out I almost throw up. Literally. This whole letter is the farthest thing from figurative, mainly because I am too weary, and I don't see a point of embellishments when I am forcing myself to write. I've blocked everything and everyone out, and I am not exactly sure why. I've been telling my best friend that I am okay every day for the past week, she doesn't believe me, but she'll stop asking soon. I am like a toddler who's learning the alphabet except the alphabet is asking for help and the toddler is extra thick. He gets to the A, then to the B, then to the C, but never past that. I get to holding my phone, then to the text, but never past that. The ticking bomb has never been more eager to go off, it's corrosive and it's eating away at me like fire.
And It's here again, the urge. I've been trying so hard not to go there again. I've been saying to myself over and over again that no matter how bad it gets as long as the urge isn't here it's okay; I will still put one foot in front of the other and make it through. I've been getting good at it, making through, keeping it together, smiling enough, pretending to listen, and I thought this is it, you're there. But it crept upon me, so quietly, so lightly (funny, right?). I am not here anymore, I am hollow, and everything goes through me. It's scary because the urge is here and it's telling me to go, quietly and consistently like a lullaby that gets stuck in one's head. It's here in the most mundane moments, it catches me unaware and it keeps telling me to go, Tom.
"You’re tired of movin', your body’s achin'
We could vacay, there's places to go
Clearly this isn't all that there is
Can't take what's been given
But we're so okay here, we're doing fine
primal and naked
You dream of walls that hold us imprisoned
It's just a scar, at least that's what they call it
And we're free to fall"

To Eva

Dear Eva,
I get it now. I always used to think your "I close my eyes when music is playing because it helps me see" was just a romantic line of yours, you've always loved to make everything poetic. But I get it now, I do. I closed my eyes and saw him. And I swear to you, when I opened them, it was only him. I saw everything, Eva. The way the ghost of a smile would come across his lips at a certain part, or the way his fingers would slightly move of their own accord, I know he can't help it. Hell I even kept imagining what would go on in his head, does he miss someone? Does he ache?
You know how when you're longing for someone so much that you start imagining them everywhere? I don't even need to close my eyes anymore. I miss you. I've been thinking too much, too too much it's getting suffocating, I even had this letter in my drawer for three days, thinking, again, too much about whether am I gonna add in what I am going to write now or not. I don't know what's wrong with me, Eva. Or maybe I do, I know my principle problem, I keep everything unresolved and I bury them, the thing is they never settle, they jump back at me with so intensely I can't take it. I fall, I fall and I fall and I fall, harder each time. I am always scared of my next fall. In fact, I think I am approaching my next fall, I am approaching my next breaking point and I don't know what to do, I choke on my words, it's like I have this unbreachable wall, and if even I can't push through, how can anyone? Don't worry, darling, I am not asking you for answers; consider this is one of the bottle letters that never reach anyone. How have you been? How many times have you fallen in love since we last talked? Tell me all about it.
Love always,

To Tom (3)

Dear Tom,
I know it's been too long, but that was our deal right? We will never be superficial, we will never allow mundane details into our relationship, no ingenuity of any sort. So here I am, reading this book about lightness and weight and remembering you. I wonder how one could bear both the weight of their existence and the lightness of its insignificance, all at once. It's kind of funny; I've had this book on my shelf for ages and I only happen to pick it up when I am struggling with both contrasts. There's another concept in this book, this concept is "Es muss sein"; it's a phrase that means "It must be". Do you think reading this book at this exact time of my life is my Es Muss Sein? Isn't this the kind of coincidence you'd read about in one of your novels? Do you remember that time we were sitting on your bed and you told me "I don't want to wake up tomorrow, Anna" in the most casual tone ever, like you were asking me what are we having for lunch? It horrified me. Not the fact that you didn't want to wake up tomorrow, but how calm you sounded when you said it, because I know you, Tom, you're not the kind of person that can conceal their feelings, your voice always betrays you, so I knew you were feeling as calm as you said it and it scared me. I didn't understand, but now I do. I've always aimed for the lightness of being, but I can bear neither the lightness nor the weight of my being. I want it all to go away, Tom. I can't stand myself, do you think it will ever stop? In my lifetime, I mean, has it stopped for you? Talk to me, Tom, I miss you like hell. I'll always think of you as the most precious thing I've ever had in my life.
Yours always,

To Suzanne

Dear Susan,
I've been confined in a crappy hotel room for 3 days and I had a vision. I'll keep it to myself for now until my soul is sure of it, you know me, one day it's a vision, the next day it's just one of those dreams. I feel different since the last time we talked, Susan. I am more worn out, more heavy with sadness, with loss. No, I haven't lost someone, I've just been losing myself bit by bit. I am so detached from everything, everything. Last night I was looking at the sea and I had an overwhelming desire to dissolve, for all my particles to be scattered in it, never come back. I feel like I am not fit to be here, I am not made for anything earthly. Since I mentioned losing myself, I am losing my writing, too. You have no clue how painful it is to sit down and write these words to you. I am quelling an irresistible urge to crumble the paper and just cry. It seems like all the addresses I've be given for home are mistaken. I think it's absurd to keep writing this, I just can't, I am sorry. I'm only writing to let you know, I am fine, alive, and well.
Till we meet again,
Wed, 8:07 PM

To Ezra

I've been reading a bit about how drama originated, you know I have a thing for beginnings and first times, and I think of literature, and how it began. And because to me, literature and love are more or less interchangeable; one thing leads to another and I am thinking of the first two people to fall in love with each other in the history of mankind. Do you think the concept of love existed then? Did language even have the word love in it yet? Because as much as I love literature, as much as I love poetry, there's something beautiful about having no words, no language to describe your love; the frustration, the ache in one's bones to express something unearthly, something at the time they didn't even understand, didn't even know existed. It's enchanting to even think of. I am actually quite jealous of those two people because imagine feeling this thing which you have absolutely no explanation for, towards this one person out of all people in the world. This thing that makes you want to touch them, or look at them, or just hear them breathe. Then imagine touching this person for the first time, I mean, do you see what I am talking about? Because hell, this would the richest version of love that existed, not your first love, but _the_ first love. One more thing about love, I've always wondered how people know they're in love, and now I think I've figured it out. It's silence. Yes. Not just any kind of silence, because any two people who are comfortable with each other's existences can be comfortable with silence. I think there is a kind of silence that's exclusive to people in love, a silence that feels like poetry, even though there is no poetry whatsoever. Your mind is blank, you're not thinking of something poetic, in fact, you might not even be thinking at all. But the silence embraces you with a feeling that only poetry can grant you. And this is when you know you're in love.

To Tom (2)

Dear Tom,
I think I am stuck in some kind of loop. I keep going back and forth to the same spot, with the same pattern, it's getting kind of pathetically funny. If you open your top left drawer, the one you keep all my letters in, you'll find that I am right. I am tired. Exhausted. Drained. And by the way, speaking of repetitions, you'll also find these exact 3 words in almost (if not all) of my letters. The words are worn out. One thing changes though, Tom, and one thing scares me. The wall gets thicker and thicker. I try to say something, to tell someone, but the words that manage to fight their way up my throat bounce back at me. Hollow. Weightless. And not sounding like they're mine. It's why I haven't been writing, too. The distance between me and my words keep getting bigger (I'm going to entertain you with the fact that I've been staring at this for 10 minutes trying to explain how it feels to lose my words, but I think this is explanation enough.) I can neither use words to explain myself nor to understand myself, now. I am utterly and wholly lost. Things are piling up and I am starting to feel a little bit like the ticking bomb hidden inside a teddy bear in the movies. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. I don't know when I'll go off. I am so alone, Tom, and the reason for that is that alone is the only place I know how to be without being ashamed. Please send me some light.

Yours always,

I do not tell him

I am sitting in a microbus and the man next to me is getting a little too comfortable. I take a breath, and shrink myself in my seat, it's okay, we do this every day. Just 45 more minutes and we'll be home. He keeps touching my arm and I keep shrinking further. Another breath. I politely ask him if he can move a little bit to the right, he looks at me with appalled eyes, like I just accused him of something. Did I? I bite my tongue. I do not tell him. After all, you do not tell a random stranger these things, right? So I do not tell him. I do not tell him about the man who touched my thigh when I was a kid of no more than 13, then smirked at me, daring me to say something. I do not tell him about the man who threatened to slap me because I stood up for myself, or the man who spit at me for no reason at all. I do not tell him about the man who yelled "يا خول!" at me in the midst of a crowded street, I do not tell him how I felt then. I do not tell him about the boy who threw a stone at me and snickered with his friends. I do not tell him about how I dodge men in the street like my life depends on it, I do not tell him about how I'd rather walk through a thousand blazing suns than walk by a group of men. I do not tell him anything, after all, you do not tell a random stranger these things, right? Another Breath. He touches my thigh. Stomach drop. I pray. Even though God hasn't been exactly present. I wonder if the rules of physics would allow me to become one with the window next to me. I ask him again. He looks at me dumb and I envy him. I envy him because he is completely unaware of anything that does not revolve around his existence. I shrink and he stretches, like it was an invitation for him to take what presence I had and make it his own. He touches my arm, again. Fists clenched and jaw tightened. I can already feel my neck aching under the strain. How do you tell someone he's taking all the air you're supposed to be breathing for himself?
I am tired, of shrinking my whole being for men. I am tired of folding myself into bits, and bits, and bits so I can fit in whatever tiny space they allow me. I am tired of shrinking my anger so I wouldn't be taken for a (God forbid!) man-hater. I am tired of shrinking my niceness so it wouldn't be taken for an invitation to something I never asked for. I am tired of feeling like I do not deserve to occupy a place in this world.

To someone

Everything is piling up on me and I am crumbling down under the weight. I've been having more anxiety attacks lately, it's painful, and it's more anxiety inducing to go out of the house wondering if I am going to have one in the next couple of hours, to wonder whom I am going to be with, and whether I'd like them to see me this way, to wonder if I can keep it on the low, wait it out without anyone noticing. I haven't been kind to myself and it's not making anything easier. I drink coffee when I don't need to, I smoke too much, and I barely eat anything at all and when I do, it's mostly nothing my body can thank me for. The sadness is cornering and smothering me; and it seems like the more I try to look for the light at the end of the tunnel, the more the tunnel closes down on me that I don't know if I can make it out. I was looking at old pictures yesterday, and I saw my mom and dad. They were smiling, holding hands, eyes lit up, they were happy, and they had the looks of people who didn't know what was coming for them. Before that I had come home to my mom looking like she just made it out of a storm. Bags under her eyes, her face paler than I've ever seen it, she looked fragile, ready to be broken at any moment now. Her voice broke with every sentence she spoke to me and I had no words to comfort her with. You see, whenever I opened my mouth the words turned into air. Do you think that this is what life will do to us eventually? Maybe that's what it's doing already. Dimming us down, breaking us apart, piece by piece until all the light goes out altogether? I hope not. I hope The Smiths were right when they said that there's a light that never goes out, and I hope to all that's holy and sacred in the world that if there is, we know how to hang on to it before it's too late.
Anyway, I am still always trying to embrace all those who need embracing, and I am trying to weather the storm.
Love always,

To Joel,

Dear Joel,
I've been taking French classes (Paris, the ever-cheesy dream), and I've come across a word. éphémère. It's been two months since I've seen this word and it refuses to leave me. It means something that lasts for a short while, and it's more or less the same word in English. Ephemeral; which really annoys me, because if we have a word like this, so enchanting, why do we insist on using a mundane word such as temporary? And it got me thinking that this might be the whole reason why people are so scared of things being temporary; it's the charm of the words. I know I sound a little bit like a lunatic, but bear with me. If you want to confirm my theory, weigh out forever and all its synonyms with this word, temporary. Eternal, everlasting, endless, hell even the word always outweighs it. Joel, ever-since I heard the word éphémère and I've had a certain infatuation with temporariness. Now everything fleeting induces this certain softness, lightness even in my heart. I think I just had an epiphany. Maybe, the reason why I feel such sudden lightness and softness towards this word, and the meaning it brings is because it's so close to my favourite word. Effleurer (which means to touch lightly). I am allowing everything to touch me lightly and go, Joel. And it only took me two French words, and a love that's calm.

Yours always,

Onism

Onism  n. "The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out you are here"  (In short, being aware of how little of the world you get to experience)

Imagine, a word, made up of only five letters, is the reason my chest feels like it's being pulled down by a 12-floor building.
A word, made up of only five letters, is the reason my eyes can't find it in them to give in to sleep.
And speaking of sleep, did you know that the average person will sleep 229,961 hours in their lifetime or basically one third of their life? Did you also know that this simple fact managed to keep me up at night for the entirety of  the past week?
Because if I sleep one third of my life, when do I get to live my life?
I read 10 books in parallel, not because I am indecisive, but because I want more than this world allows me.
I always experience things half and half, because I am here, but I am thinking of everything that could have been if I weren't.
I've always hated my limitedness. I want to burn each and every map that says I am here to the ground.
I've always hated having just one, really short lifetime.
The possibilities of everything I could ever be narrowed down to one life time.
The idea of all the lives I will not live, all the universes I will not get to see, all the conversations I will never get to have, all the music I won't get to hear.
In the end, I am only one human among 7 billion humans, on a planet that has 195 countries. One human, on a planet that has a billion worlds within.
Do I dare mention the idea of the existence of other planets, other universes? I think not.
It makes my bones ache and my mind strain.
I am terrified of the idea of not living, the idea that I can only be one thing, or a limited number of things.
I am being burdened with the weight of something that's not there. All the forsaken possibilities.
It's both agonizingly beautiful and beautifully agonizing to be human.
The agony of not knowing, the agony of having no control over anything, of having no control over being here to begin with. The beauty, the beauty of loving and being loved and getting hurt and all the in betweens.
It's all too much and it's still not enough.

To Tom (1)

Dear Tom,
Last time I wrote to you, I did so with an unbearable heaviness on my heart, a heaviness that kept pressing its weight further and further down my throat, claiming my body, inch by inch; my lungs, my heart, my legs, and those hands with which I am writing to you this letter at the moment, the hands that always helped me let go of my weight, that helped me scream metaphors at the sky when my mouth was choking on thorned letters; they, too, have fallen victim to the heaviness. It feels like forever, Tom, forever since I held a pen and didn't ache with every word that goes out of it. I have an urge to disintegrate my body, piece by piece, to understand. But I never can. So let me just tell you about the piece that has shown itself to me tonight. My longing. I long so much for the times I was lighter, for times when my heart found solace in the sky, or when the lyrics to my favourite songs used to make sense. Do you remember how much I cried when we heard Sleeping At Last's Saturn? You thought I was going mad; later on I told you how the line that went "How rare and beautiful it is to even exist" made me feel like someone held my heart between their hands and caressed it, how it sent fireworks roaming up and down my spine. You still thought I was mad, but you kissed me anyway. Now even as I write those words to you, it feels like I've already written them a thousand times. The light is leaving me, Tom. I am still trying not to use the past tense; how does one deal with the loss of the only thing that kept them hanging? I barely recognize myself these days; blank eyes, lifeless smile, empty words. All I want to do is detach from everything, and everyone. I am slipping away from my surroundings bit by bit, and it's not scaring me, it's comforting, but the loneliness isn't. Am I making any sense to you? Ironic, isn't it? A writer who can't describe how they feel. I'll stop here before you go mad. I miss you, I still remember the last time we met. The sun always seemed to follow you everywhere, hold on to your light, Tom.
Yours always.