A life half expressed
may as well be dead
To me.

Count the syllables,
One by one,

The eternal tale,
Spoken lines,

Reading our silence,
Word for word.

~Robert van Lingen

You’re afraid of heights and I of depth
The fear of not having anything to fall back onto
Or the fear of not having something to stand on no matter how wreck-less you allow your mistakes to be
Depth goes in all dimensions, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t stop at deep dark waters
It continues its way through my veins
Through baseless strength and unstable reasons
The look of darkness that finishes into nothingness

It stops at undoubting resilience which I cannot reach

I still like looking into it though, it thrills me
A second, a push and it’ll take me to that resilience or into nothingness
But it scares you, only because it comes from a height
It makes your stomach turn and hands weak
Not of what’s inside of that but of what it takes to get there

It was sometime between 11:30 pm and midnight

You’re afraid of heights and I of depth
You know, the one that stops at undoubting resilience
One which I cannot reach
It makes me sick and my chest feels hollow
My fingers look for grip
And my legs usually shake

But last night I wasn’t afraid
When you pulled my hand back
as I leaned against the edge of the wall above Thames
There was this radiance in your eyes
Brown, which people don’t talk about enough when they exemplify the beauty of eyes

Brown, the depth of which I hadn’t faced before
But I refused to be afraid of
Uncertain if the depth grew with my fingers shaking or your stomach turning

Your brown
Of how its succumbed with restlessness when you’re drunk
Of concern and constant pressure of not losing control of your shield
But still so pure
The hue which deepens when you talk about the person you love
Repeatedly, because you find words insufficient
And of how sometimes you leave traces to the problems you never speak about
The colour that grows deeper the more you look into it
The colour that nurtures the light of the laughter of the people you care about

The brown that falls asleep in complete innocence
Letting down all your guard during so
Slowly, part by part
The one which looks at me with sub-consciousness when your arms pull me in
The gradient that tries to make sure I have company till I pass out
The depth of which I don’t know if I’m scared of

2 hours later it was almost 2 am, and

You’re afraid of heights and I of depth
You know, the one that stops at undoubting resilience
But last night I think I wasn’t afraid
There was this radiance in your eyes
Radiance bright enough to show me the lighter side of depth

It grew brighter with every acceptance of your feelings
And darker with the realization of so
A shade darker every time I tried to draw meaning out of it
Dark to the hue of your afternoon tiredness
As you gently traced delicate lines with your fingers on my back
And softly locked our bodies together, your breath warming my neck
To no fall, nor any height
No stomach turns or shaky legs

It’s way past dawn almost 9am now,
My sleep breaks to realizations

You’re still afraid of heights and I of depth
But last night your brown carried me away
I was still afraid of depths as much as you were of heights
It’s just that your brown was almost a glorified one
One that gently looked at me with assurance

Your brown
Brown, which people don’t talk about enough when they exemplify the beauty of eyes
The brown that I looked into as the sunlight illuminated its light
Your morning brown
Your lightest brown
Which hardly lasted a minute
The best hue, gradient and gold that it could turn to be
Looking around with a blur
Only until it grows back to its darkest shade,
Deeper than the waters last night
Putting your guard back on

It’s way past dawn almost 9am now
My sleep breaks to realizations
You’re still afraid of heights, and I of depth
I’d say you know the drill by now
But this morning, the branches of your umber grew back onto me

I have seen broken glass at ice breakers
And dream paralysis for living dreams
The broken glass attempting to get stuck together
but being thrown away as if it was meant to stay in pieces
I have seen fulfilled nightmares and crippled wings just like how they would show a glorified warrior
I have seen wet bathroom floors, red sometimes, just as beautiful as the crimson sky and
I have seen google searches on why bleach and pills didn’t work just the way I have seen someone committed to get their promotion
I have seen blue and purple faces just as beautiful as Chantilly laced flowers,
Embracing themselves like roses even after being plucked – despite the pleading attempt of their thorns
I  have seen their rosy colour fade away as they struggle to show their best shade of red before they leave – because who likes disappointments?

And who likes putting back together someone else’s glass pieces right from scratch and you and I both know that even if it stuck it wouldn’t be the same again –
So it just melts itself to start all over again

And who likes seeing rotten shades of red, blue and purple when it’s easier to choose to see the glossy teary eyed side –
So we pretend everything is okay as we enjoy the sunrise

Those held thorns don’t like being appreciated but if you pluck their flower you’re leaving nothing behind but the dead corpse of an almost
But who likes to deal with the anger side of depression anyway?
So we just walk away, leaving the thorns un-watered to grow corpses of hatred

And of all the terribly glorified things I’ve seen
I’ve seen gladiators out of battlefields
Struggling with no weapons, fighting with themselves
I have seen children with fake smiles
Unused umbrellas in bags
I have seen attachment grow it’s roots all over to be simply cut by a scissor of betrayal

Of all the cracked ceilings and tight ropes,
Bridge edges and stoutly stiffened up hope,
Of the useless sharpeners and tiger prints on thighs
Crowded beaches drowning inside and sharpened nails all ready to fight
I’ve sat on quiet dinner tables where the only chewing sound is of the collapsing mind

I’ve seen friend lists filled only with acquaintances
And inboxes questioning their state
I’ve seen wrists smothered with concealers two shades lighter
And bags of eyes carrying weight heavier than that of broken dreams and flightless wings shrunk and grown tighter
I have seen fire burn bright of all the alcohol annihilate
And anger that can shake mountains with it legs tied together to a stingy abrupt volcano of abuse

And I have seen never ending nights
When blades are finally of no use

But who wants to talk about it unless its poetry anyway?

I look in the mirror at a person I don’t recognize anymore. Prodding and pulling at my skin just to make sure this is who I am I only cake on so much makeup because this is the me I don’t want them to see.

So they don’t

They don’t see me and time is just running away and what if I can’t make them see me before time is up?

It’s not that I’m invisible, I know they can hear me and they tell me that really, I’m fine, and I’ve never been an issue but then why do I feel so out of place in my own day to day routines?

In fact nothing is routine anymore I have no constants. Eating, sleeping, it’s all ireggular and sometimes I can’t remember doing any of it at all.

I have pictures filling my camera roll of happiness in a moment that I can’t bring back, why do I keep them for happy if all they do is make me sad?

The clock is ticking and I can hear it but they can hear me so I can’t scream, they don’t see me but I’m tearing at my mouth trying to get out the words that I really want them to hear.

And they tell me, that it’s okay to be yourself.

But only around certain people. Because society wants you to have curves but never in the wrong places. They want you to feel free to speak your mind as long as it’s something that they want to hear. If you keep your secrets to yourself you’re hiding something and if you share them you’re being too open.

But time is passing.

I need time, I need routine, and I need to remember happy so that I don’t fall in love with sad because far too many do.
So I will scream into the wind where they cannot hear me.
And paste on my paper facade.
Someday, they will see me.
Now you don’t.