Emptiness

Source

It was a glorious sunny day. The kind that shone on all your problems and made them go away. Not hers though. She lied on the couch, covered with two blankets, surrounded by a heap of things she had needed but didn’t care to put away. The mess around her mirrored the mess inside her.

She stopped picking up the phone and returning any messages and emails. What more was there to say? What could anyone say to her to make her feel better? To take some pain away? And she didn’t want to hear the sigh they all made when she gave the same recycled answer to the same questions. How are you? How are you feeling?

How was she supposed to feel? A month ago a freak accident where no one was to blame took her husband. Her best friend. The person she had been so used to having around her that she kept expecting to see him sitting at the dining table, working on his laptop.

If she managed to sleep semi-soundly, there was a blissful moment in the morning when she thought that she would find her husband next to her in bed. But that was so short. And so painful when the realization hit. Never again. Never again would that happen.

Everyone around her meant well. Checking in, making sure she ate, offering advice. But she didn’t care. All she cared about was that he was gone. And he wasn’t coming home. No more plans, no more Scrabble tournaments and pillow fights, no more kisses and hugs. Even his shirts lost his smell.

Her sister told her she had to go through the stages of grief and she would somehow heal. It felt like her process only had one stage…emptiness. She didn’t know where to turn, where to go, how to live. How to find the desire to do all that?

A Second

She hasn’t moved from the spot in the corner. Right between the two walls is where she feels the safest. Nothing else, no one else seems like a source of security. Nothing protects her.

Last night was the night she put some much pressure and importance into. She thought it would change her life for the better. Change the path of her life in the most joyful and blessed way.

And yet… A second can change everything. A second did just that.

Sarah was on the way to meet her for their six-month anniversary dinner when a moment of carelessness destroyed everything they had talked about, everything they had built, and everything they would have created together. One red light and their dreams shattered into millions of tiny pieces that didn’t know where they fit anymore. Because everything fit with Sarah. She fit with Sarah. Her life fit into Sarah’s.

Now she doesn’t know where she fits. She doesn’t know where her place is.

She is still clutching her phone, even though it’s been hours since she got the call of Sarah’s death. She is afraid of her thoughts, of feeling Sarah’s loss, of thinking about her life without her would-be fiancée. The desperation is all-consuming. It’s like an avalanche behind the front door. If one pebble came through, everything else would follow. And she would be buried under it, trapped and unsure if she wanted to get out.

What does it all mean? What does it all mean without the person you love? Without the person you wanted to spend your life with? Is it a life worth living? Are you worth of living?

Loss

Source: Visualhunt

I lie on the bed, moving my fingers absentmindedly over the spot where I still feel your presence. I would give anything for my palm to touch something concrete, to touch your skin. But every time it doesn’t, pain shoots through me; my heart has no more pieces to break and yet the void of you not being here never stops trying, shattering me. How can there be nothing else to give and yet feel like it’s taking everything away from me again? With every single breath?

I move on to my stomach, my face buried in the pillow. A fresh wave of anguish shoots through me as it hits me there is no scent of you left. I rewind to the last moment we were intertwined here, in this exact spot. I don’t want to, it’s too hard, but I can’t help myself; you are engraved in to the very core of who I am.

I fist the sheet. My hand still feels empty because I can’t grab your hair now, messing it up; I can’t palm your face, running my fingers over your stubble.

I hate the t-shirt I’m wearing because it’s not yours. I hate my bed now because there is only me in it. And I hate that I’m tormenting myself with what is left of my memories.

But what is even worse than reminiscing about it now is when sleep renders me helpless and unguarded, leaving my brain and heart open to be tortured with a hallucination that feels so real it makes me wake up in disorientation. Asleep, I can still feel your skin under my fingers, I can still hear your voice calling my name, I can still smell you. I still have you there. So I don’t know what’s worse. What’s better? Not to be awake and have you, waking up to the agonizing realization that’s an illusion? Or to be wide awake, present in the now, and not have to deal with the fresh loss every time I open my eyes, just feeling it simmer under the surface like a shadow?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

What I do know is this… I hate you because you’ve caused me being in this situation. Because you’ve poured water on my life-loving fire. You’ve changed me.

And I hate myself for loving you despite it all.