Mistletoe

December 22nd

Monday December 22nd

12.34am

My eyes had yet to dry up, but I could feel myself growing immune to the effect of the tears. My chest continued to ache with a persistent force that was beyond me to prevent. I had given up on trying to keep my emotions at bay, instead I was letting them flow out with the help of my pen.

I'd ditched the pencils in favor for something more solid, darker and permanent, just like how I was feeling. After having made a quick review of the human heart anatomy I'd taken to drawing a hasty contour of it in my sketchbook, I made the edges of the heart broad and dark, impenetrable.

There were small channels that signaled where the major blood vessels would be, and with hasty lines I filled in the details of the heart. I made a vertical line down its middle, creating an imaginary crack. Next came the water.

As I worked with a unnecessary haste on my drawing I continued to let the tears flow. Every now and then a sob would escape me or I'd have to lift my pen away from the paper in order to wipe my face before going back to the task at hand.

I took inventory of the picture before me, but it felt too... flat. Too lifeless. It didn't convey what I wanted to. And so I hastily stumbled off my bed, my legs dead from being crossed for so long, regaining blood flow. In the bottom drawer of my desk I found what I was looking for and I returned to my bed with the small chest of colored pencils.

I began with the red.

First I made a bold line with the startling scarlet color around my already broad outline, then I set to color in the heart itself with different shades of red and black. Abandoning the red for the blue hues I filled in the cascading water that was pouring out of the heart, creating a dam at the bottom of the page.

Lastly I colored the remaining blank background entirely black. I applied pressure to the pencil in my hand until there wasn't a single white piece of paper left. I had to take a deep breath when the last blank space disappeared, I slumped backwards and rested my head against the wall.

My eyes were fixed at the ceiling as another tiny sob escaped me, it made me feel weak and powerless that I couldn't control my emotions. They said it was healthy to feel, that it meant you were in touch with who you are, but if this was what they meant then I called bullshit. I would do whatever necessary not to feel this broken.

With a stubborn resolution I looked back down to my sketchbook, and I saw my feelings portrayed on paper.

Staring back at me were angry sections of black, red and blue. The edges were far from refined; sharp angles protruded from what in theory should be rounded corners, matching my own raw emotions.

This was me. This was how I felt right now. That was my heart there on the page, trapped in unwilling darkness with a crack running down its middle, water cascading out as it continued to weep from its loss. A loss that had come completely out of left field. A loss that never could have been predicted, but also a loss that I wouldn't be without even if I could. Because feeling this loss so deeply just gave to show what the days with Parker had meant for me, what it had done to me as a person.

Yes, I'd fallen in love. I wanted to tell him this, but it wasn't something I wanted to blurt out over the phone either, so I'd have to bide my time and wait until I saw him again. I could do that, right? I could wait it all out, and everything would be fine.

Or so I desperately hoped.

05.26am

Dad found me on the couch that morning. I'd given up on sleep somewhere around four in the morning and had relocated upstairs where I could make myself some tea and wallow on the couch in the living room. It had just felt poisonous to remain downstairs with my own thoughts just seeping out from the wallpaper, baiting me further into the darkness.