Ragged edges and fists pounding against the tiled tabletop. I choke on the tears. They're so raw and urgent that it feels like I've had a wad of cotton shoved rudely into my throat. I can't breathe. I can't speak out against this onslaught. You turn me around, whirl me around the empty center, and I can't tell what I'm feeling, if it's anger or loss.
This is why I disappear into words, into music and books and oil paints smeared in schizophrenic patterns on our empty white walls (sorry about that security deposit, by the way. I guess it doesn't matter now), because they are more real and more vivid than any piece of my life with you. Books are dreams I can fall into when you offer me nightmares.
It wasn't always this way! I know that, I still know that, and I have no idea how we got here. Wasn't I in love? Weren't you? I wish you could hear me, even if you refused to answer.
Later, when I am lying on the kitchen floor, curled around a handle of cheap vodka, I will think this isn't so bad. Later, when you have been gone for at least a day, I might not feel so hunted.
You said you felt trapped, and I guess I can understand that. That's my problem, too, only I'm actually caught in the trap. Some days I could tear at myself like any other animal caught in something it can't understand. Some days it's quiet in my head until you bring the clouds home with you, until you track in hate and fear, black rage-mud ground into white carpet.
I am afraid the stains will never come out of our floor. I wish I didn't have to wake up, but I'm afraid that I never will. I'm afraid of leaving and of staying and of being caught between. I don't know where to go or what to do with myself or how to live with this ending. I don't know how this happened. Maybe I am as crazy as you said. I can't think straight anymore. I'm afraid this is a dream and even more afraid that it might be real.
I'm afraid that a new day is going to come, and I will still be right where I began.
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For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Bran macFeabhail challenged me with "Listen to Monotov's Private Opera by Third Eye Blind and humour me with something bittersweet." and I challenged femmefauxpas with "Maybe it's a poltergeist!"
