Dance with me?

Seventeen

You asked me where I was. I couldn’t really tell you earlier. Maybe I never knew, maybe I never wanted to. But I know where I am today. Seventeen. I’m stuck in seventeen types of reverse at this very moment, and each and every single one of them takes me back to you, to where I belong.

Sixteen

I’ve puked sixteen times in the past three weeks. I thought I might lose count for a while there but I never really could. It just kept getting worse, every single time. Maybe it all just got too much for me. Maybe I let it all just get too much for me. I never really wanted to relapse like this, you know but you kept pulling me back in those circles that I can’t ever seem to let go.

The last time you asked me if I was well, I never really answered you. I could never lie to you, but I couldn’t tell you the truth either. But I’m not okay. I’m really not. I do not know how to tell you.

Fifteen

It’s been fifteen days since the last time I laughed. It doesn’t really seem that big of a deal to me anymore and I don’t really think anyone ever seems to notice, but you.

I still remember the day I cried like a baby, with the raindrops, feeling that it would never go away, knowing that it never would, and all that made it better was the sound of your silence on the other end of the line, 217 miles away. And when you called that day to say that you were in love with the sound of my laughter, I knew that I never wanted to stop laughing. For you.

Fourteen

There are fourteen scars on my left hand’s wrist. The entire universe scorning me for them and my entire universe telling me that they’re beautiful. I knew that they’d never heal. Such scars never really do. And the entire world never really skipped a breath in reiterating that to me. But you, you, my darling, were the only one who ever told me that I never needed them to. My scars didn’t need healing. All they needed was you.

Thirteen

It’s been thirteen weeks since the last time I picked up my guitar. And you never wanted me to stop playing. Trust me, I didn’t either, but when the rhythm of your passion beats to the chords of your memories and the footsteps of your past, not the symphonies of your present or your future, you give up.

You were my music, darling. I played, just for you. Maybe I stopped playing, just for you, too.

Twelve

It’s been twelve weeks since the last time I climbed to my roof. It wasn’t just about being afraid anymore. It was about not being able to be in control. I lost it all when I become my own ticking bomb. And darling I had to stop. I had to stop this countdown to my own doom. I was afraid that I’d let it all go before I’d get a chance to breathe what I had to.

You ask me why and I might let go, yet again.

Eleven

The clock strikes 11:11 and your name is the only I ever whisper, the only I ever want to whisper. But the truth is, you weren’t only ever just my 11:11. You were my 11:08, my 11:09, my 11:10, my 11:12, my 11:13, my 11:14 and hell, every second after. Because I never really wanted you at just some point in my day, I wanted you to be my entire day.

I’ve always believed in everything unbelievable, darling. That’s probably what kept me going. But I’ve stopped believing in 11:11’s now.

Ten

It’s been ten days since the accident. I stopped driving. The last time I got in a car, I almost stopped breathing. My lungs felt heavier, my heart slower and my pulse receded. They called it a relapse. They gave me names of a ‘couple’ of syndromes. They believe I suffer from at least seven out of the list of nineteen. They call it a disorder, multiple disorders. They say I need immediate treatment.

They called me a severe case of downright mental trauma and emotional exhaustion. I was diagnosed with a few more serious names that don’t seem too abnormal now, yet names I can’t recall and I’ve been told that in order to get better, I need to leave behind my escapist tendencies.

But how do I ever tell them that my escapism is the real reason behind my survival?

Nine

I lost my way nine times in this past week. But then again, you know how terrible I have always been with directions. Maybe I never really intended to reach anywhere. Maybe I never wanted to. Maybe I was always better lost than found. Maybe I lost myself to be found. Maybe I’d lose my way, all over again, if it meant that you’d come looking for me. Maybe I lose myself, every single minute, just so you might come along one day and find me.

Eight

It’s been eight days since the last time I took my tablets. I don’t know when my refusal to gulp down those pills became a sign of my rebellion.

Maybe I thought that not taking them would make me feel like I'm in control or maybe it was my way of pretending that it wasn't that serious.
Whatever it was, they had stopped healing me a long time ago. Now they only served as a reminder of who I was and who I shouldn't be.
Those tablets weren't my medicines anymore, they'd become my disease

.
And darling what do you do when your cure becomes your poison?

Seven

Seven; the number of forevers you promised me the day we met. And I promised you one more.

Maybe the forevers you promised are over now. Or maybe you never intended to keep your promise. Or maybe you just couldn’t keep it. Maybe you knew I’d always wait for you because I can never break any of my promises. Maybe it is that eighth forever that we’re living that just doesn’t seem to end. Maybe I’m just waiting for it to end. But darling, maybe I never want it to end.

Six

Six; the number of constellations I pointed out to you in the night sky, the day we sprinted across the city far from everything we’d ever known, into everything, yet nothing, until our lungs laughed and our hearts beat to the sound of the waves across the shore. Our pulse matching the rhythm of the silence we caught onto and our fingers entwined as we dwelled in the symphonies of each other, dreaming of a world that knew nothing of us, a world we knew nothing of.

Five

It’s been five hours since the last time I had a panic attack. I don’t even know what it means to have one, anymore. It’s my normal now. Nothing out of the ordinary. But if the doctor terms it as one and says that I have to get injected if I have one again, I do not resist. But how do I tell him that the injections don’t work anymore either. The treatment makes it all the more worse, if it could get any. And the silence does not help. Neither does the noise. I don’t know what I want anymore. I just want it all to stop and go away. To get away. I need to get away now. But isn’t it too soon?

Four

It’s been four years since your father passed away. Do you still hate him? Do you not miss him? I remember how you told me that after everything he’s made you go through, you could never love him. But then why do you keep a photograph of you and him hidden in the bottom drawer at the back of your closet. Why do you still buy bouquets for his grave every single year? And why do you weep in the middle of the night, calling for him to save you from the monsters within?

I know the eleven scars at the back of your neck and the fourteen marks down your left knee whisper a billion reasons for you to hate him, but darling, please forgive him. Forgive him, for me.

Three

The number of sugar cubes you always took in your coffee.

There’s so much about you that I’m still trying to figure out. Why the stars never fascinated you like the silence did, why you loved walking barefoot in the fields during sunsets, why the thorns that made you bleed never hurt you, why you laughed the loudest after 3 am, why your voice sounded so tired at 7pm, why you could never take any less than three sugar cubes in your coffee. Three.

Maybe I tried a tad bit too hard in figuring the cubes out.

Maybe I was never meant to figure you out. Maybe you were always meant to be a mystery to me, in this galaxy. And in every other too. Maybe, you were meant to be my mystery.

Two

Sometimes, I forget to breathe. When it’s 4 am and I’m gazing up at the sky, looking for the stars because I’m a little bit too insomniac to let go, or when it’s 4pm and I’m lying in the middle of my bathroom floor, covered in my own puke and tears, begging for it all to end. When I’m trying to give up, all alone and gasping for breath because my nightmares keep coming back, again and again or when I’m full of people who say they care, but when I'm screaming for help, piercing their eardrums, they turn deaf. When I’m scared of being who I am yet I’m too nervous to be anyone else, when I’m dancing in the middle of my own misery, staring at my own chaos and chasing the torn threads of my fallen grace. When I’m running in the middle of the night, looking for my demons, calling to them for help or when I’m losing control, thinking about what could have been, about what had been and what if? Sometimes, I forget to breathe. Without you.

After all, it was us two against this world, wasn’t it?

One

Let’s let go.

Let’s whisper to the stars that dim out for us and light up the dark candles that black out for us. I’m too tired of running around in these circles. Darling, I want to dance, for one last time. I want to lose myself to the rhythm of my beats and let my heart dwell in our little infinity. These scars have killed me for way too long already, but tonight, I want to be set free.

Oh darling, won’t you dance with me?

Dance with me. For one last time.