I Don't Want to Go

The clock is ticking, like it always has been. For quite some time, I dreamt about it being halted. One unmoving minute, when everything is just silence, stillness, and I could stare at your dark brown eyes, the scruffy haircut you said you'd curse your barber for, and fading acne blemishes around your chin that you hated so much, for as long as I could.

"I'm scared." I said to myself, retreating further to the corner of the dark room. That's where I stayed for the rest of the week.

"You're stubborn," He remarked, "You're hopeless."

"I know," I replied, closing the text window and slipping into unconsciousness.

I only see you through my screen now. I know, aren't you worried? It irks me to be honest, that I don't care in the least. All I do now is crying to depressing music and eating biscuit crumbs for lunch.

I haven't felt like this in ages. This time it seems slightly different, as if I'm enveloped by some soft focus filter. I can't think clearly. I don't speak anymore. I'm lost.

It's kind of a reflex. Fight or freeze. I did the latter a few times during my early years, and it sort of becomes a habit that embedded in me. I close the doors, shut the blinds, and get under the cover, hoping for it all to go away. But they never do. They only waited, patiently, relentlessly, until I realized it's too late.

I'm a brick. My brain is a brick. Yet, my feet... they keep on wanting to run. But the only thing I'm running is out of time.

"Why are we like this," He inquired, less of a question and more of a matter-of-fact statement. His shirt was wet from my tears, and he stared into my tear-stained eyes.

"I- no idea," I replied, more of a whimper and less of an answer. We don't always have the answer, or rather- we don't always need one.

That doesn't mean I'm not curious, though.

"You're just confused," She remarked with a professional voice. I knew she's done this many times.

I was convinced there was something wrong with me. I don't buy this whole 'growing up' and 'maturing' bullshit. I wanted to incline to the possibility that I could be a special case, they would want me as a test subject on human psyche, and that my brain was wired significantly different than others.

But no. I was just another number in the statistics of quarter-life crisis, denying to bloom into adulthood and got stuck in the loop of golden old days' memories instead.

For a moment, I thought I could accept that verdict. I just had to do better. I just had to switch my gears in a more positive mode. I just had to talk to more people, and try more things. I could do it. I was normal. My brain works fine. I was fine.

But like I said, they never go away. Only waiting... patiently... relentlessly...

I was exhausted the first time. I didn't know what made me think I could do it the second time. Unarmed, unpacked, and unprepared even. It's looming closer, and I can't run away anymore.

Scarlet

She tasted like bleeding gum and salt.

I wondered if anyone ever told her that. She just smiled, the happiest I've had seen her in a while. I couldn't bear to make rude remark in fear of hurting her, even when intended as a joke, as we usually did.

I wanted to insult her. I wanted to hear her snap a witty comeback and then we would laugh together. I wanted to.

But the glimmer in her eyes just deprived me of any sarcasm I've ever had lying around the back of my tongue. My throat went dry and my arms went numb. I just didn't have the guts to say things. I just didn't have the heart to move.

I never thought of honesty as something akin to picking a scab. You're digging an old wound, and end up scarring more. There was a hint of disgust, and you're trying to cover it. I didn't expect there would be screaming, though.

I only wanted to help her.

I only wanted her not to be sad all the time.

In my argument, you can't be happy without bearing a little sadness every now and then. You can't have meaning without struggles. You can't have a good thing without enduring bad things beforehand.

Can't have a good relationship without a bad guy looming around?

She just told me I was a hypocrite, and then my mouth tasted like bleeding gum as my cheek felt the hot sting from the palm I've always cherished.

The first thing I noticed about her was her eyes. How they look so different under the night sky we used to stroll together in, under the neon lights of our secret hiding place, under the dim lights of our favorite coffee place, and under the one white light of her bedroom lamp. She wasn't exactly the most cheerful person, but she was the brightest of sun for the brief moments we chat about her favorite bands, her pipe dreams, and her handmade tattoo.

One day the eyes went dark. A void nowhere close as a night sky, or the coffee she liked to make me.

Underneath the shade of the sole lamp of her bedroom, she looked at me like she saw someone else. Or something else. I knew she was tense, yet she wasn't moving. Her skin was pale. I went closer in hope of cupping her cheeks and telling her that I was there for her, whatever it was, but something was between my hand and her flesh. Cold. Steely.

I guess that's precisely the problem. I was there for her.

I never thought she would look that stunning in red.

It was about time the men in blue came knocking on my door. By then I was already packed up, wrote my sibling a note to take care of whatever little I've left behind, and sat on the dining room table. They started questioning me, and I admitted to what they went here for. The last thing I wanted to do was wasting more people's time.

When they asked about 'the motive', I just told them what I thought to myself all the time.

I only wanted her not to be sad all the time.

I heard electrocution would leave the taste of steel in my mouth, so when I see her again in the next life I hoped to tell her the sensation of what I sent her away with.