I woke up today in a house, a house I knew was my own but looked much different than I remember. The kind of house one sees in dreams, unfamiliar yet definable. In some way or another. I was tangled in a bed of sheets that had clearly been slept on for months without cleanse. Painted with ****** secretions, ranging from love-making to menstruating. Ash, from pipes to papers. Make-up, from nudes to noirs. You, a stranger, walk in with a giant bowl of cereal and two spoons. You knew it was my favorite, but I didn’t know you. But I knew you, you know? In some way or another. I wanted to call you a name, but it didn’t seem fitting. Maybe it belonged to a memory, what was that memory again? Oh, I don’t know. But you looked at me like we had shared so many memories that we became a new name. You spoon-fed me Wheaties and folded your feet between my legs. You kissed me and whispered a Van Morrison tune, “I never knew the art of making love ‘til my heart yearned with love for you.” And that’s when I knew.

I shoot up from the bed, leaving a concave within the foam mattress, and eye the carpet as if my feet were going to fall through.

“Hardwood. This is supposed to be hardwood.”
“What?” your eyes follow me in confusion.
“Be quiet.”

I grab a loose end of carpet near a corner and start tearing it up from its bonds. Low-and-behold, blonde hardwood sat quietly beneath it, as if it’s been waiting for me to unearth it. Unearth you.

You.
I buried You.
Everything started rushing back to me.

I get up unsteadily and tear down the wallpaper to find a screen playing back every memory. The faire. The zoo. The restaurant. The concert. The park. The bed. Our path. A doorway. A starry night under a deck. Loose cigarettes and empty bottles. A volume so loud I can’t hear myself assess. A voice echoing off every wall; “I love you’s” in infinite delay. “I hate you’s” in infinite succession.
I’m running through this half foreign house now trying to find You. Who, what, and where are You? You’re nowhere to be found. I’m searching behind every door, rustling through every nook and cranny, tearing down every trinket of décor. I’m falling to my knees and crying in my palms. Where are You?

I cry every last drop from the ocean of despair within me, open my eyes, and let the reality sink in:
This house is empty and You’re nowhere to be found.

Unrequested,
Cloaked figures surround your little bubble,
Poking and probing your armor.
You shriek every time they attempt to penetrate
And they shriek back at you, startled and confused.

Unsolicited,
They follow you around,
Picking up your footprints just after you
Mark them on the ground.
They drop petals of dead roses behind in your place
To show that in the end, you can leave behind beauty
If you so choose.

“They’re actually quite pleasant,”
You think to yourself.
You look back at them on occasion,
And they simply mumble amongst one another in a lull murmur.
Content.
Like nomads without destination in mind;
Like dreamers without expectation to find.
“I wish I could be more like them…“ you ponder.

Finally,
You’re near.
You see the edge getting closer.
The vastness of the ocean crashes against
The stone walls beneath your feet.
You wiggle your toes aloft the sharp edge,
Just enough that you can still keep your balance.
You notice in that moment the figures are finally silent.
You turn around
And with complete composure
They bow their hooded heads in sympathy,
And you realize then that your thoughts
Are not a secret to them.

Throwing your arms in the air,
You let the breeze caress your every pore.
For the first time
This nakedness doesn’t feel defenseless.

You smile at your friends
As they wave goodbye,
And fall backwards toward the water just as you would a feather down bed.
You watch the sky expand above you,
And the figures free whatever petals they have left
into the wind like doves’ feathers.

My life is not extraordinary. I wake up the same as everyone else. Before the sun, alarmed by a wimpy siren. I answer to a clock. I put on my pants one leg at a time like everyone else. I walk to work muted among the noise of a crowd. We pack together like shrimp in a net, boarding a vessel.

Work is like any other day. I work in a kitchen, by the way. I have three jobs in the kitchen. I cook, I clean, and I wash the same towels that have been used for years too long. When my shift is over, I finally get to indulge in one of my favorite activities—exercise. Peace. I can even listen to my music! Although I haven’t updated my selection for almost 3 years now, I still sing along happily. It makes me think of Tess, and I miss her. I think about her a lot while exercising, when I’m able to mind my own without interruption. Unless someone at the gym threatens to fight for a machine, in which case I let them take it. If I witness a fight begin to emerge, I leave.

I eat dinner the same time every night, 6PM. Which mostly consists of the same foods: steak, beans, potatoes, milk. Basic but nutritious, nonetheless. After that, I spend the rest of my evening reading and writing on my bed until I go to sleep, wake up, and do the same thing all over again.

See, my life isn’t that much different than anyone else… except, for me, at the end of the day, guards padlock my cell shut just before they turn off the lights, and the rest of the night drowns away with the howls of lonely wolves shivering in their cages.

The patient came to me with a plea I couldn’t refuse, so I placed my hand on his cold spine and warmed up to him, I the fire and he, suffering a harsh winter. With the rapid beat of his heart drumming against my palm, I doctored and diagnosed him. I fed him medicine and he was fine for a temporary time. A temporary, potentially affective, time. So warm, so brief—full recovery could’ve been conceived during the month of July if it weren’t miscarried, leaving that promise as a seed forever forgotten during harvest.

The patient would come back monthly for his check-up, claiming a new illness, begging for a new medicine. I’d give it to him willingly. After all, he needed help.

After about a year, I gave out so much to him there was hardly medicine left for my other patients.

Considering, I reduced his dose to even the imbalance.

“Can you not see how I need your help?” said the most desperate wrinkle of a face, “Did I do something to deserve this?”

“No! No, of course not. There is just limited supply and high demand. You are one of many mouths to feed!”

“Do you not care for me anymore?” Was the worst one. Of course I cared for him. Admittedly, I cared for him more than all my other patients. I know this is not professional of me to disclose, nor is it fair, but it is an honest guilt that tugs at my hair like a gluttonous infant.

Blame was thrown at me like cannonballs. Suddenly, I was the cancer he tried so hard to fight. That thought alone was too heavy a burden to bare, so I reluctantly gave him the entirety of my supply.

Day in and day out, I began to hear the other patients drop like thick glass behind me, where I would never look back. I kept a steady eye on him, as he was my child in a rackety crib I was too afraid to leave alone for the fear that he’d stop breathing at any moment. I am a miserable, exhausted mother of a child that never matured.

And it’s just he and I now, forever in frozen time.

I couldn’t remember what had kept me here in the first place. Trying to look back that far nearly snaps my neck. Your face no longer holds an image in my brain, but I remember your words. They painted a picture themselves.

“Smoking hinders your sensibility. Sight, smell, taste, touch, even your ability to feel. Trying to smell your dinner sometimes strains my head. Not because it is bad, but because cigarettes are just so **** good.”

I stared at the overflowing ashtray and grief engulfed me as if I were staring into an uprooted cemetery. With analyzing every crinkled **** smoked down to its perimeter–except for one that was half smoked, and leaving a cigarette incomplete was uncommon for you, so this was undoubtedly the first and last one you didn’t get to finish–I imagined this to be an accurate illustration of what your lungs must’ve looked like when you last sat in that shabby recliner you considered your throne. You held your words with grace and pride when you coupled them with a smoke, and if my memory serves me right, I don’t believe you spoke all at when you didn’t. The majority of the time, you would push your throne closer and closer to the television like someone was going to take it away from you. Who knew one day you would be right.

I picked up the ***** half-cigarette from the tray and blew off the relic it wore like it was a dusty picture frame found in an attic. Nothing about it called to me, at least not the way you pretended it did.

“I need my smokes! It’s morning. I can’t start my day without one.”
“Some ***** at work blabbed about me taking smoke breaks and nearly got me suspended.”

When you developed a cough, they began calling to you in a different way.
“If I stop now, then all this would be for nothing.”
“It’s been proven that people become sicker when they quit.”

When you would try to quit:
“You might want to leave me alone for a week, I’m going to be grumpy until I get over the first phase.”

When you would quit quitting:
“You’re stressing me out, I need one!”

These statements have played in my head in incessant unison, and with forgetting the sound of your voice, they have taken the sound of mine. I keep the conversation going to prevent the silence from driving me mad.

Holding the tip of the cigarette against my lips, I pretended I was kissing you, and for a moment, I swear, I tasted you. You tasted terrible.
I lit it and rid myself of the only thing you left behind, for your sake
(to finish what you started)
and mine.

As I’m writing this, I look down at the skin on my hands and watch as it vibrates. The blood pulsing, shaking with fear and guilt and all the things that become of me. I watch my fingers as they fling across the lines of a notebook or the gravel of a keyboard. Limbs that took years to operate, apparently, but it feels like nothing. So much so that I don’t feel a soreness from doing it for long durations. And boy, do I write.

When I walk around, I watch my feet skid across the pavement. I imagine my toes wiggling inside of my sneakers as they crunch elderly leaves and kick around loose dirt. Remorselessly squashing bugs. Forgetting about them the minute I step foot into a building.

When I talk to people, I watch their faces as they mirror their insides. Sometimes their voices fade in and out depending on how much I’m able to concentrate, but that’s fine because I don’t need their voices to understand what they are trying to say. They say enough with just an expression, and this is scary because I hope I myself never give someone else the wrong idea when I’m silent.

I’m a sculpture, apparently, but I’m real. Real? Real being tangible? Yet, to me, looking in the mirror does not make me feel real. Watching my hands as I write this does not make me feel real. Following my feet during strolls does not make me feel real. You know what makes me feel real? The thoughts pouring out of my fingertips with every word I write. The aggression that releases with every step I take. The nausea that sits inside of my stomach when I’m burdened with my sorrows. The tingle in my chest when I’m laughing at your jokes. The contentment of an evening when everything is silent and my head is clear.  Thinking about my friends when they’re in pain. Hearing my mother cry from across the hall. The frustration of awaking from a dream once I realize it was only a dream.

My body doesn’t make me feel real. Half of the time I forget it’s there. My reminders consist of: mosquito bites and piercings, ******* and all-you-can-eat buffets. When your friends move they still neighbor you. When your relatives die they’re still here. When a love is lost your heart inflames with their absence.

These are the things that physically mold reality.
These are the things that suggest to me I’m alive.
These are the things that comfort me during episodes of feeling like nothing more than a wandering corpse.