AYSE BUNTION

-AYSE BUNTION,

November (11) 17, 2020

It’s a tough mask to take off — pretending that you understand and accept your own pain, trying to convince others and yourself that you’ve fully moved on and healed from your wounds whenever you don’t even know why such agony exists inside of you when you have only touched the hearts of souls of others gently.

Why do I deserve this?

What am I missing?

What is it that I’m supposed to be seeing, what it is that I have to learn?

It’s an almost impossible disguise to take off — the whole time of pretending as if I had been better than I was even before the darkness hit and tragedy struck again, the image of a seemingly strong, overcoming, and recovered person just began to stick to my skin even more over the months that turned into years.

You can’t remove this character that you’ve created, and only you know that this person that others see isn’t truly who they’re thinking that they’re talking to.

Most people believe that I’m happy, that I’m “fixed”, that I’m “okay”. The truth is that I don’t even know what it means to be “okay” anymore. After all of this time pretending, I can no longer escape the pain because I can no longer remove the mask, take of the disguise, and break character of who I have created myself to act as if I am.

Every time I look in the mirror, even just at pictures taken of me, I become more lost inside of myself. I’m not who is in the mirror, not who is in the pictures, not who is sitting right next to you, and I’m not the one who is talking to you with those bright, lively eyes and that sweet, sincere laugh.

I’m trapped inside of myself.

Use to, I’d beat on every wall of my heart, I’d climb the walls in the darkness, the bottomless pit of my core, trying to escape the reality of my own hell that was created and set ablaze inside of me at some point in time that I can’t necessarily remember when it was.

Nobody can hear me.

So, I just stopped screaming.

I stopped fighting, stopped clawing at my flesh, stopped trying to find my soul or feel with my heart.

I just can’t anymore.

Very obviously, you believe that the person right in front of you is everything that is me, but it’s not. I know that I’m there with you, smiling, laughing, joking around, accompanying you with undying happiness that clearly shows in my face, and you think you can see a glimpse of the life in my eyes, but that’s not me. I’m not there.

My touch is warm on your skin, but my heart is cold within. My spirit is dim and my soul is no longer lit.

Never did I think it would come to this.

It seems as though I had handed out everything that I was, broke myself apart to fix the broken pieces, to complete and fill everyone who was without, lost, broken, and beat down. Now I no longer have any of myself left, so I’m lost inside the great abyss within my very own skin.

This disguise, this face you see, the character you believe in so deeply and love so purely, it’s not me. I’d love to show you who you really have been loving and giving your time, your undivided attention to, when you sit down with my body, my empty shell, and tell stories, talking about all of the most meaningful things while laughter and love fills the space between you and me.

But, it’s time that I tell you, and I hate so much to admit this, but this disguise made of lies can not come off anymore. It’s been too long since I have stripped myself of it, and it must now be worn as if it is my own flesh.

I no longer know myself.

I’m starting to think that the real person that I lost inside while trying to hide from the light, has now died. I feel as if I’ve lost my life.

You see me right in front of you, and you can reach out and touch me, feel me physically there with you by reaching out and holding onto me with your bare hands, but it’s not me. I can’t feel a thing.

This mask, I can not take off of my face. You will not ever be able to see who it is behind the scenes, that you didn’t know isn’t the face that you recognize and love so much.

This disguise, I can not take off of my soul.

My heart is draped in curtains of warmth and untouched flesh, making it appear as if it is life that is beating through itself. It’s my true thoughts, feelings, and emotions of my mind and heart both, that would make you grovel and point a gun to your head, pulling the trigger. That is why I do not disclose the components of my mind. The devil found his place and made home inside.

While I do understand that your beliefs that I am who I appear to be are so very justified, a character is best played well when the occupant of the body pushes themselves far from sight — it’s been long enough that you’ve believed this lie.

Reach out and touch me.

It feels as though that is truly me, and that I am really what everything is you can see.

I hate to tell you this, and I understand if you’ll leave past here, but that is not me.

This disguise has been worn far too long and this mask has been a constant accessory that I use to flaunt. With time, sweat, tears, and the tears that have gone by, they’ve grown on me. The wounds upon me have grown skin that’s fused with these parts of the character I play while trying to heal, and they still can’t all of the way because the disguise of this person I portray is in the way. I laid it atop of my wounds to cover them so they did not become infected by the world’s toxic air, and they just never have gotten to heal. I didn’t give them the chance to.

Leave the pieces of me that you thought you had known astray so you can forget I ever existed, because I know it’ll only hurt you worse to stay close and know that you’ll never be able to see the real me. That’s parts I can not show.

It’s impossible to take this mask off now, after so long. It’s inevitable that this duisguise is what I’ll become and slowly have been becoming.

For you, I would do anything, but if you’d want me to strip myself of this character and show you the real my, just know that this burden isn’t coming off.

No longer in front of you, I’m so lost without any sight of where to turn to. I’ve been in the darkness since, I can’t even remember, so I can’t even see through my eyes. You look deep into them when we’re talking, but I’m sunken into the abyss within, falling from any attachment to my body.

There’s no bringing me back.

I feel as if the last time I hugged someone and felt the bodily sensations as I reconnected with my physicality for a split moment, was my last breath. It’s crazy that I don’t even know when that was or who I even had embraced, but I do know that I’m so glad that you still feel something — the warmth and gentle care, the deep love — whenever I wrapped you up in my arms.

Wishing I could feel something is so traumatizing whenever I know I should, but it’s only everyone else who gets to touch me or gets touched by me, that feels me. I wish that I could feel me.

This whole character I’ve became, has been pursued and portrayed, worn upon my body and face, for it to ever break down or pull away from my skin. Yes, I know that you see me and feel me, you connect, bond, and laugh with me. You smile, you live life, you love, you fill the atmosphere with light and positivity with me, but I hate to admit that the person right there, it’s not me. It doesn’t matter what you believe, what you see, or even the fact that you reach out and touch me to grasp physical feeling of me — that is not me.

You hug me back, but I can’t feel it any longer. You speak of times where happiness and peace remind me of what I’m not anymore, then I smile. But you don’t know that I’m falling further, sinking deeper into the hell inside of me, as I break down further inside when I realize what once had and how I’ll never have that again.

You see me, but I’m disconnected.

This disguise is not being stripped and this mask is not being removed. It’s been far too long that it’s become the replacement of me and the memory of what I use to be.

Right in front of you, I’m laughing with you, I’m talking to you, but I can’t feel a thing. I can hear everything echoing down into the hole within myself that I’m lost and trapped in. That person you see in my seat is not me.

I’m not there.

I can never be.

This disguise and the character I play, created with light that shines bright and the warmth of the summer sky to match the mask on their face, is all a lie so beautifully and realistically made by the person that is being portrayed.

I’m not coming back.

I carried life.

What reason do I have to hate my body?

My body can do the most beautiful — creation. There is no reason for me to not love it, to not care for it. I must learn to accept and honor it. 🍃

The last time I checked my weight, I was down to 139 lbs. I bet I’ve gained a few pounds within the past couple of weeks, but I’m way better than I use to be (160-203 lbs). I’m so much more comfortable with myself and within my body. The change is beautiful. 💗

You’ll get there.

-AYSE BUNTION

That’s what the defining moment of my life became— nothing but a word to go from. Nothing but a look to kill.

Set fire, and I have done it again. I destroy what I create. I destroy what has been created for me. And, I destroy all that is meant to be.

Because, simply, of all that has destroyed me.

I can’t seem to not drown when I bleed.

Always, I drown everything that surrounds me. I drown all that matters, that’s important. All that I want to stay, I make leave. But, it’s never my intention to do just as I do, and as I have done.

I always set fire to the world as it spun. Just as I always forget that my tears in my apologies, are not always enough to extinguish the fire that I have set, and burned, others in.

The saddest about it, is that every time I have set someone or something ablaze, they always have somebody or something else awaiting them, then they run from me.

For them, there never was just me.

And, in all that I lit,

-AYSE BUNTION

How is it that we become nothing?

After our deaths, we are free,

but we are to never to return -

we are to be forgotten.

I can’t believe that we only live just for a small amount of time, taking up a small space on Earth,

but have to disappear, never to be seen again,

for the rest of eternity.

How is it that we never get to see the sun,

not any time after we are called to peace

and have to leave?

It is not fair to those who never got to see the light

any day of their life,

and have been stuck in the darkness

with no strength or will to fight.

How is it we don’t get a second chance?

-AYSE BUNTION

All I have left for you

are the words I never had gotten to say.

I have the chance to

but passed it in each moment,

of each day.

So many words I had to speak,

but never found the right way.

I have never loved,

never lived,

and never existed as beautifully

as I did with you.

I gave you my all,

but I am still at fault

for our fall.

I regret it most of all my mistakes.

Now, all I have left for you

are these memories

of every moment we had shared.

All I have left for you

are these wounds,

My love, my sprit, my body, mind and soul - my heart has been torn by its seems and strung out onto the floor from my chest. I must admit that I can not stand this pain. I can not bear this guilt or carry this weight. I can not cope with this loss, this grief. It all is too immense for me.

Promised an undying love, just to watch it fall apart. Nothing is ever as certain as it seems.

This is my fault in the very end, though I am not the only to blame. It is just that I still find the deepest love and attachment because all of myself was given, and he has met all of my demons - he knows them by name.

Why must I carry this brokenness once more? This time, though, it is worse a million times more. I can no longer see the dreams in my life that, to myself, my success, I swore. I no longer have dreams. I must lay down this crown I wore, being the woman that was closest, that loved you through the bad and glowed with you through the good, the woman that was yours.

We lost it all and I lost you. I no longer carry your heart, so now I feel empty. Deeply, I am torn. Stitch by stitch, I slowly unravel. The wounds you closed had healed but now they’re ripped right back open. From my heart, I bleed. Must your love had to leave? I miss you in the morning time when the sun rises because it is a day I must live without you. And I miss you in the night time when the sun sets because it has been a day that I had not had you. My soul can not rest. I lay awake, exhausted, when I should be asleep in bed. But even if you were there with me, your heart is not. Each day that I don’t have you, I have one day I could’ve spent with you less.

I am so sorry, my love, and myself. I did not mean for this to become. I did not mean to break his heart. Now I have broken mine.

I wish that you would’ve loved me less. Because now I have so much I’m going to miss.

I am in my darkest hour, and I don’t have your heart to light my path. I can no longer see where I am going. Where life is taking me, I can not feel certain of yet. All that I know is that I will never be the same when there’s a space where you are supposed to be and your absence is, of you, all I have left.

-AYSE BUNTION

-AYSE BUNTION,

10.26.20

In the darkest of times,

here I lie.

Here I am in all of my pain,

my grief,

and my agony.

I have dug my own grave

and took my own life,

the second I loved you

more than I loved myself.

In all of my desperacy

and despair.

Look at the stone I have turned into,

and know I had done this to myself.

Here I lie,

with all of the lies,

all of the secrecy,

and all of the demise

that I hid so well from you.

When you are to look to me in times of need,

in question of why,

look to this ground upon me,

this soil the Earth has gave,

the dirt that I have longed for

while I was yearning to be saved,

and know that it is here -

-AYSE BUNTION

He said he loved her,

and she felt it.

He touched her skin,

and she felt it.

He told her of all the things he felt

when staring into her eyes,

of all that he withheld before,

the emotions that filled him

just with standing by her side.

He took a deep breath

as the boiling emotion of love

filled his chest

and warmed his heart.

He spoke to her the words

that couldn’t quite explain,

but meaning of his true intentions,

pure and loving -

and she felt it.

He gave to her

his heart,

beating within his hands,

and handed it to her.

He said this was all he had for her,

but was all that he was.

He told her that he loved her,

-AYSE BUNTION,

07.11.20

My face hurts,

sweat dripping from my brow.

The way the world turns,

it crashed into itself.

The day the world ended,

-AYSE BUNTION

Last night, I swore I saw the memory of everything you’ve ever said to me.

I often see the faint image of your heart’s presence walking around the room,

once standing steadily to the ground in between these walls.

But, now, it is only stepping forward from my past, as a ghost in the shadow of a memory,

and I don’t understand why you had to go and leave yours behind.

You’ve always had the most beautiful talent of leaving your love to fade in the time that I spent counting up the numbers on the clock,

waiting for you to return,

although there aren’t enough numbers on a clock to have ever readied me for your absence in the vast emptiness where you once were.

I watch you dance in my heart to the beat of my love for you,

then my mind misses you all over again when I focus on the way you look in that song you wore so well.

The echo of the warmth when you held me, crawls through the floor, and seeps through every open crevis on my skin that you never touched.

Once again, I realized that I needed you the way that the rain needed the sun during a storm.