The other side

Entry #1

There are times when it's easy to talk it out, when the words just flow out of me and it's out in the open for the world to see—there are times when voicing it pushes off the weight on my chest, and I instantly feel better.

But there are also times—much more frequent times—when the words get clogged in my throat. When my voice struggles to get out, to be heard, struggles to find someone to listen. Times when the words jumble together in my head, and messes with me, where I lay awake with pursed lips and to anyone else I looked calm, composed.

No one notices the storms curling up underneath my skin, nor the words knotted behind my lips as it takes every ounce of self control in me to hold back the unnecessary tears, smiling tightly.

No one notices how my knuckles are turning an awful shade of white from clenching my fists so hard, my nails digging into my palms only to leave red crescent moons behind, for me to look back at and sigh at how heavy the weight on my chest is.

Of how heavy and how fast it's growing, and how much does it drain me to walk about and simultaneously drag it behind me. Of how hard it's pulled and tugged at my heartstrings until it formed a hole in my chest—or heart, I can't really tell the difference between both nowadays. It hurts the same—and how the hole is getting bigger.

And how I'm feeling even numb-er every time the weight tugs at it, the hole eating up another part of me—parts I'll never get back, ones that I scatter around me and make no move to collect them, or move to try and piece the broken parts together again.

What's the use? They'll fall again anyway, and even if they didn't and I actually managed to piece the pieces back together, you can still see the cracks from where it had been broken once, then more than once.

Just like I can still see the cracks in my façade every time I glance at myself. I could be surrounded, in a room full of people and actually laughing at something my friend said that's funny, but then my gaze meets my face in a nearby mirror or in my phone or something, and my smile falters, heart aching.

Because I remember that this—the genuine laugh that I'd just let out—is temporary, and that I would be going back home tonight only to lay in the dark, engulfed by the pillows and the blankets, with no one to fizzle the pain away and no one and nothing but my non-stopping train of thoughts to keep me company.

And even in my dreams it still follows me—the weight that had clawed its way into a hole in my chest and pain in my eyes—and manages to dull the brightness, so that even my conscience is haunted.

Trapped in an endless cycle, one that I don't even recognize when did it start nor can I see an end to, all I can do is take a deep breath and burry myself in distractions—that is, of course, if I can make it that far without my mind spinning so fast and so bad that it has me pushing away whatever I had deemed distraction, only to dive back into the silent, gaping, clawing, painful weight that has managed to spread everywhere.

There's no release.

Running away. It was a powerful instinct, one that clawed at my mind and my insides until I sprung to action and ran, away from my problems, from my friends, from what I feel—or maybe from what I'm scared to let myself feel—until I've ran away from the world.

I had managed retreat back to the shell that I've carved, behind the walls that I've built around me in a lame attempt to protect myself.

In a pathetic attempt to breathe, feel better—sounds ridiculous now that I once thought that hiding out and seeking shelter behind guarded walls and a exterior of steel could ever heal me, or even help me move on.

If anything, it did the opposite.

Relying on running away to be my fallback has become my coping mechanism, and not just with the hurt and the pain that never truly leaves me, but with anything remotely along the scale of painful.

I could always just run, it was always there. My shell, my guard... the walls—they're always there, wide open and waiting for me to run back to if I feel the pain claw its way up again. And in a way, it had turned into my worst toxic trait.

Because when I run away, I don't run away screaming, I run in silence—complete and utter defying silence that the source or the person that has supposedly hurt me doesn't even know. Because if I don't show a reaction to the pain or simply word it out that this fucking stung, then they shrug. Must not be bothered. She didn't mind. She's okay with that. She's cool with that. She's strong enough to get over that. It will get past her anyway.

But it didn't and I wasn't good or okay with everything that has happened to and around me, I just couldn't find enough strength in me to say it, so it stuck with me. It hurt? Oh well, I ran from it, and now I'm hiding, waiting for the clenching pain part of it. I'll come out when the numbness has settled in, with a practiced smile and a lame excuse.

"Sorry, I'm just tired."

"Couldn't sleep. A little grouchy."

"Maybe I'm coming down with something."

And even if they don't believe my lies, they pretend they do. Because if they pretend that they didn't notice the pain buried in my eyes, etched to my face, or didn't noticed the way my hands shook—then we could move on.

It was easier this way. Nobody would care anyway.

This isn't a movie or a book or some shit: there's no picture-perfect guy who's gonna see through my facade like I'm made of glass and shatter through the walls that I'd spend years building only to love me senselessly and help me heal.

God that sounded... magical, and a girl could dream yeah... but this was real life.

And in real life there's just plain reality and a pain check—there's no knight in shining fucking armor to the rescue: it's me, my thoughts and I. No one is coming, and there's no tipping point.

There are just two types of days.

There will be days when pushing away the weight and sewing the hole in my chest would be easy, where my own would overcome the million others nagging at the corner of my mind, and the pain would stay there, in a corner, where I would only hear it faintly when I'm alone.

But bad days exist, and they will continue to exist. Days where getting out of bed seems like a challenge, where brushing my teeth takes too much energy—energy I don't have. Where coffee turns my stomach growling and the mere thought of food makes me want to throw up. Where I cannot focus on anything and just can't wait to get back to bed, even if bed meant getting swallowed whole by my thoughts—it would still feel more tolerable than sitting through the day with that goddamn sun that's shining too brightly for what I could handle.

Days where I can't even run away from the screeching pain.

And even if I could find enough strength in me to run, I don't even know what is it that I'm running from in the first place. It—whatever the hell it is—has just managed to wrap me in a cocoon until I couldn't breathe. And suddenly, living life looks like an awfully long time.

Or maybe it isn't really that long, and it's just me that is getting dragged around until the day finally, comes to an end. But even in a fizzle of hope—the pain doesn't end with it.