The Things That Linger

Do you know those dreaded morning afters? 

The morning after a breakup. A nasty hangover. 

The feeling of leftover alcoholic seltzers still in your mouth from the night before. 

Or the feeling of perpetual regret when all the mistakes begin to sink in, as the sun shines through the cracks of your windows.

Well, that’s what life is starting to feel like for me. 

My thoughts are beginning to become constant comets because everything is changing and I don’t seem to know where I belong. 

Lately, I’ve been feeling like the fears instilled in my heart are coming around more than I ever have. They linger, loudly and violently in my dreams. 

I used to love the people in my writing, but now why do I feel nothing at all? 

People who were once so alive, and real are nothing but a fabricated memory of who I wanted or what I wanted my life to be. 

I find myself continuously waking up into what feels like a fever dream. 

But the thing about me is that I change when I walk away. And why is that? How can I combat that? How do I remain the same? 

Is this what life is about? Am I meant to change? 

I pretend there is no time slipping away from me but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

What do I do with all this time? I am so scared of all this time. 

Maybe it’s just the wind.

 If I stay up will time go by slower? 

I’m sick with this illness of nostalgia.  A longing from here, a memory from there. 

Memory hurts wherever you touch it. 

I just miss it. In a quiet, simple, and desperate human way. 

I have survived everything but I fear, right now, that I cannot survive myself. 

Instead of having these thoughts destroy me, I feel fortunate to know what I can do to keep myself afloat. 

It’s to write. To listen. The occasional prayer and a good cry with a friend. And to take up as much space as I need without apologizing for it. 

Because maybe that’s just what life is. 

Figuring this out all on my own. 

And more often than not I find myself not being able to look into the eyes of the people I love most, because I think:

I know something is making you deeply irreversibly sad and you’re just here talking to me about the weather and I’m going to let you. 

Sometimes I want to ask, 

What aisle did you find your serenity, 

do you know how to be married for fifty years, 

or how to live alone? 

I’m so sorry for being insane or invasive but you seem to possess some knowledge that makes the earth burn and turn on its axis….

 But I’ve normalized to not request such things from my friends. 

So I settle with saying, I love you so much more.