Set You Free (CANEM)

XXXI

After the long days of being so alone, the pain ebbed.

The knives that were once in her back, the long blades slicing into such sensitive flesh, slowly healed. Even though it took its time.

But like any wound, the scars were still very much there. 

A memory of what he had done to her. Something that was impossible to overcome.

On the last day she broke down, the last hoarse breath leaving her lungs, she could take it no more. She had to force herself to face up to the fact he was never coming back, no matter how much it killed her inside to realise. 

Looking to herself, she knew she had to move on. 

Recovery was a natural process and something she desperately grappled with, as the panic attacks came and went and her mind had beaten her to the ground. A mental low that she had never experienced. Her body and brain completely exhausted.

She couldn't move on from him.

It was hard just to think or feel clearly.

For many, the feeling was indescribable. Only those who endured such pain could know of its agony. She didn't even try to explain to anyone the suffering she was going through. They wouldn't have understood. How hard it was, when you lost someone who loved you more than you love yourself and everything and everyone around you. 

But yet, you felt nothing.

You felt dead inside yet you couldn't even cry.

It felt like somebody had ripped your heart out from your chest, which you needed to live. So you were paralysed. Shut down. A mere shell of yourself. Everything around you was just a memory of them, echoing around your head. Like cries and screams. 

But you can't do anything about it. 

Just bear this pain.

-

"You are the knife I turn inside myself. That, my dear, is love"

 - Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka

-

The harbour was the hub of creaking boats on waves and gulls that filled the air with beating wings and cries. It was the salty breeze and the new white paint along the sea wall. The ocean brought with it life, movement and a place to rest the eye away from the bustle of life.

Sanem sat against the sea wall and tried her best to take in what should have been, for some, an exciting day. If her old self had been in that position, she would have been jumping from the ceiling. She often wondered where that girl had gone, forced to the back of her mind by the ever pressing sadness.

But this day, she would try her best to feel the happiness, even though she couldn't.

She let the warm sunlight soak into her pores as she closed her eyes, absorbing every sense so her body could gain the bigger picture.

Sanem noticed that it was the first day in a while the black hole in her chest had subsided. The comforting calmness of her body was something that soothed her brain; a respite from her condition. 

But just because she was suffering, it did not make her weak.

She noticed her recovery in pieces. Small things that she latched onto. She wanted to write, that was a start. She had noticed it was the only way to deal with this pain. At first, the words stung but by now, it was a refuge. Finding solace in the paragraphs.

Like a child playing with an open flame, she wanted to dig out her old books and pens and delve in. Almost salting the wounds. After such a long time, she just hoped everything was not the dream it seemed to feel like. And above everything, she just wanted to see his gift again.