elyvryssa

I stare at people for too long sometimes, hoping someone will read the frozen tears trapped inside my eyes.

I search for that same reflection in the faces of lonely and silent boys.

But the only place where I ever truly see it reflected back at me is in the makeup mirrors that once belonged to those dead girls.

For hours and days, for hours and days I beg God and whisper prayers into the dark.

I want Him to help me and I fall onto my knees.

Though since the day I was born, the help I waited for never came.

Maybe God punishes me with the things I love most, so I try to do everything perfectly, just to escape those burgundy punishments.

I choose silence, choosing not to speak to anyone.

Maybe the filth inside me grows so heavy that I begin to live through hell before dying.

Sometimes I want another God to descend from somewhere higher and take revenge on Him for what He made of me.

I ask whether God must hate me too.

Life stood right in front of my eyes, but I only watched it through the smiles of other girls.

I envied the diamond bracelets around their wrists, and carved red lines into my own wrists as if I could steal that kind of beauty for myself.

But they were never diamonds. They never meant anything.

I watched the way people treat a doll that is already broken.

As if whenever they found a place still left untouched, they wanted to strike it harder.

I listened to so many foolish voices. I had to listen to the stupid words of people who broke me again and again.

When they said they missed me, I stayed silent so I would never have to miss anyone back.

Maybe that is why I thought I was being punished, why I thought I was cruel.

Sometimes I whisper that I wish it were not in my hands to feel this way.

I went today to the place where I watched you on that second day.

You were alone. From that upper floor I had watched you for two eternal hours.

You were so beautiful that you silenced my mind more deeply than the most expensive drug ever could.

A woman was giving a speech. She spoke for hours, worshipping herself with every sentence.

All the boys and girls grew restless. They mocked her, drifted outside.

But you never looked away for even a moment. You listened with such quiet respect.

I admired you so much that I watched you with the same reverence instead of her.

When a beautiful girl passed in front of you, I pressed my nails into my palms until they hurt.

But you never even lifted your head. You looked at no one except me.

As always, you were dressed completely in black, and beneath all that darkness your golden hair glimmered.

I thought you were an angel wrapped in mourning.

But you wore black because somewhere inside yourself, you already knew you were going to leave.

I think before I even knew your name, I understood that you would disappear from me.

That night I cried trembling, terrified that you would never come back.

Months passed, and they dared to decorate the place where I had watched you.

Even though they had no right to touch it.

No matter how hard I tried, I could never force myself to enter that place again.

Maybe I was afraid of what I would see.

Maybe I was afraid of hearing the cold voice of regret.

But today I finally dared.

Just as I was about to leave, I walked into the building.

Block E.

Seeing my own initial on the wall made me giggle.

I tried to relive that day. I looked around slowly, carefully, as if memory itself might still be hiding there.

I closed my eyes and wished time had stopped.

But time had started running long ago.

You knew it.

I knew it too.

I opened the door to the place where I had once seen you.

There were loud screams inside. A basketball game was playing.

In the place where I had watched you, people were smiling now, watching a game with such seriousness.

But I was not watching the game.

I was watching a year ago.

I was watching the ghosts of you and me.

I searched for the lonely chair where you once sat.

But the room was too crowded, and I could not find it anywhere.

So I only walked through the paths I had walked that day.

While everyone else stared at the match, a few people stared at me, because my face looked like someone standing before an ancient work of art.

They had no idea.

I think someone shouted for the people who were not watching to leave.

And the noise, that simple happiness, made my head ache so badly that I ran down the stairs clutching my heart.

If I had been the one who left, and you had been the one who stayed,

would you have watched that game?

would you have watched that game, or made betting slips?

Would you have sat in the place where I once watched you and tried to understand what I felt?

All of these possibilities are only theories, but if you had been the one who stayed and I had been the one who left,

either I would have returned hundreds of times,

or I would have erased my own memory

so that it has a meaning and value.

I want to hide the scars under a pink dress,

so that my pain is something special to me.

I sit at the table closest to the exit,

so that I can be the first to escape.

I smile when I see a lonely and sad boy,

so that I do not drown in my own.

I relive a nostalgic heartbreak over and over,

so that I do not writhe in a new pain.

I call the smiles of happy people ugly,

so that my tears look beautiful.

I go again and again to the place where I first saw him,

so that I can be embraced by the hope that begins with his name.

I do the pinkest and brightest makeup,

so that the marks of the time I cut my face remain hidden.

I do not speak at all,

so that the thoughts that have remained hidden in my mind have a meaning.

I drink until I forget or remember everything,

so that the memories are real.

I believe in the reality of God,

so that the pain I suffer has a reward.

I believe in fate,

so that it is the beginning of that September morning.

I still love you,

so that having a name has a meaning.

And you run away out of fear,

I feel like the day I almost crashed the car.

To run away and never come back, to run away and keep returning again and again.

Sometimes all I want is to disappear, to smash this old phone into pieces.

To run for miles and see what lies beyond the ocean.

To buy the most precious sapphire compass and break it halfway through the road.

To ask for directions from people whose language I do not speak, just to hear a voice.

To pull the golden trigger again and again and play a never bending game of Russian roulette with a Russian.

To change my hair completely, to try every color, or cut it like my lover’s.

To sit in a cafe and have them write “no one” or “nameless” on my cup.

To drink the creamy sweetness I loved as a child, and then take a plain black coffee just to sober myself up from the night.

To dance in nightclubs where I cannot even read the names, to take off my clothes, to just feel something, or maybe feel nothing at all.

To have a missing person report written about me, and to laugh with the police and say poor girl.

To go back to the holiday village of my childhood and burn the house there to the ground, then clean it all again and let myself fall into the sea.

To sleep with the father of the boy who first broke my heart and tear his family apart.

To feel the chemical reaction and count the heartbeats.

To go back to every school I ever went, leave letters behind, and chain them shut so they are never opened, so they cut the hand of a thief who tried to open my words.

To wear a chain made of promises and show it off as my most beautiful necklace.

To dream fantasies about leaving, and when I finally run away to cry over the starlit beauty of the purple past.

For everything to always feel like it is a matter of time, but yet there is never any time left.

To cross my fingers and swear, and then break every oath.

To swear to God, and when I leave to forget the beginning of all those begging promises, or pretend I have forgotten.

To stare out the window and know that life is real.

To be as pure as a river and as filthy as the punishment in hell.

To wear your shoes and follow your steps, to walk the path you walked before you ran away.

To hold a baby and ask for forgiveness from it, and when it is baptized to understand it too carries sin and return it to the Mother.

I wish I could say everything I think, but my mouth is zipped with words I do not even know.

Can you not kiss me without making me speak.

To run away and kiss hundreds of blond faces that look like you.

Even if you dye your hair I would not care.

To shoot at the sun and beg mercy from the moon.

But the stars have already written what was ours.

My Dear Rainbow Butterfly

My dear rainbow butterfly, you taught me every color, and because of you everything has turned into a soft pastel pink. Once our love was hidden inside Pandora’s box, but now it rests in a jar of strawberry jam, quietly waiting to be opened. I read sweet love stories and I want our love to be like them in the summer, bright and sunlit, warm in a way that never fades.

We will ride a bicycle and wander through a garden where flowers and bees giggle together, and you will pick a violet and place it gently into my hand. The sun will grow jealous of your golden hair, mistaking you for the brightest honey flower. I braid my hair and tuck daisies into it, I bake an apple pie and share it with little baby rabbits, and they thank you before hopping away happily.

My shy flower, do you still blush like a strawberry, and at a party, do you ever miss me? Do you miss your mother more, or me? When you arrive, we will embrace in a garden, and that sugar-sweet fairy laughter will echo softly between the flowers. Do you hear it too, somewhere inside the fairy tales?

I light a cigarette filled with fairy dust, and this time what escapes my lips is not smoke but a pink dream. Do you keep a flower in your pocket beside my photograph, or are you still afraid to look at my face? Do you still think I resemble your mother?

The sky is purple and there are daisies between my fingers. I like when my hands smell like flowers, I laugh and call myself a flower girl. I don’t scare anyone anymore, my love. I am just an ordinary girl now, someone walking down the street like anyone else. Maybe that is better, maybe it is best to be a flower girl.

I bought ballet flats and wear them while walking through the ladybugs’ little world. When I see an old couple, I smile at them, and they wave back at me, saying what a sweet girl I am. You made me gentle, you healed my frozen heart with a softness I didn’t know existed. I am not afraid to smile anymore.

My smile reminds me of you. I let the light in, I tore down my black curtains, and I do not hide my name anymore. When people ask, I tell them. Everything feels romantic to me now, whether you are here or not, I will never hide my name again.

My Golden Prince

My golden prince,

I close my eyes in the endless, giggling light of spring, just like when I look at you.

The little blue birds hear my laughter and smile at one another.

“Spring must have arrived,” they whisper.

They declare you the golden prince of spring.

I see a heart shaped cloud and I paint it pink.

It shows me that love exists in every piece of God’s creation.

I draw flowers in every color of the rainbow.

I sprayed the perfume I wore the day we met, vanilla and strawberry.

Now you could recognize me just by my scent.

My love for you has become a love for life itself.

I want to live. I love living.

The sweet fairy of spring comes and embraces me softly in my garden.

She gives me a gift. It is life, inside a jar filled with strawberry jam.

When I ask her name, she says yours and flies away.

When you arrive, I will kiss your amber eyes and you will hide your face in your hair.

I will fall in love with you all over again.

You will tell me about everything you did while you were away, and this time your eyes will be full of excitement.

As I tell you how brave you are, I will prepare a chocolate milkshake for you.

You will hold my hands and tie yellow ribbons into my hair.

We will look up at the sky together and butterflies will land softly on our faces.

The velvet secret wish hidden on its leaf will come true, a white wish wrapped in ribbons.

We will place purple hyacinths in our room.

Bees will visit us and tease us about our love.

They will call you the golden prince.

I will ask you about the signature I wrote on the first day.

You were the one who handed it to me, and that signature too was made of gold.

Our sun kissed giggles will dance with golden pollen dust.

I will tell you that you are the most beautiful boy I have ever seen.

I will buy an old yellow car just to take you on little rides.

I will paint daisies all over it.

We will walk hand in hand along a small path.

Then we will sit together in a garden filled with pink roses.

Has the sunlight warmed your cold heart enough?

Will you finally be warm, my golden prince?

I am so in love I might stop breathing.

The only breath I take might be your name.

After eating strawberries, you will call me strawberry shortcake.

And when you smile, I will kiss you.

With an old camera tied with a sparkling ribbon, I will take many pictures of you.

So when you leave, I will have dozens of Polaroids to look at until you return again.

Spring Lullaby

I pour cinnamon salep into my ribboned cup. When I miss you, it fills me with a gentle warmth. Blue nightingales have brought me a gift, a lullaby wrapped in a smile. The lullaby sings of the first lights of spring. The little love bugs inside me giggle and I feel ticklish. I thank God for our caramel warm love.

I have not looked at your photograph for a few days. I think I feel peaceful. I am having a picnic where I eat the clouds. I lie upon emerald green leaves and for the first time I do not want to escape into another time. I have accepted time and now I wait for the future with golden hope. Daisies are dancing for me. I painted my nails yellow for them. I giggle because they remind me of you.

I want to fly a kite with you that will last until September. I know you will leave again, but I wait for the time when you are mine. I want to meet your burgundy colored mother. I know how much we must resemble each other. I want her to brew me a warm cup of tea and tell me stories about how I make you happy.

Today I smiled at a few people. They say I look very young, that I have an innocent face. I feel like a newborn rabbit, hopping with light little steps. I wore a ladybug patterned dress and painted my hair with flowers. I place ladybugs on my hands and they wander across my tattoos. I decided to sit somewhere with my mother. My old best friend said she misses me and that her birthday is approaching. I will bake a blackberry cake.

I wake the little bee that had fallen asleep inside a flower. It sends you my greetings. I wonder about you. I remember the reflection of your smile beneath the sunlight. A memory adorned with orchids.

When you arrive we will sit together in a garden. As the flowers bloom, will your face blush? The sparkle of spring has softened my heart. I will get high among bright pink flowers and drift into sleep, not out of sorrow, but to hear my own happiness and the sweet lullaby of spring. Perhaps then I will look at your photograph.

Whenever I speak about you, there is a cat sleeping by my window. I gave it your name. While I sleep, it waits beside my head and guards me. I cannot wait to introduce you to him.

I miss you so much, my love. I want to kiss your soft cheeks. And I love you.

My Yellow Violet

My yellow violet, I am filled with pure spring happiness.

As the time of your arrival draws nearer, the vanilla sky reminds me of heaven.

And I wait for the angel to arrive in summer.

I brush blackberry pink blush onto my cheeks.

I make a necklace from daisies and wrap it around my neck, though once the only thing I wished to wrap around my neck was a rope hanging from the ceiling.

Perhaps God has finally forgiven me and given me a new name beneath the honeyed daylight.

My name is the four leaf clover.

And I will not allow anyone to make a wish except you.

When you arrive, we will pick strawberries together.

I will kiss your amber eyes while you dream of lavender.

We will celebrate the birthday of the love fairies when you look at me.

The beating of spring’s warm heart makes me feel alive.

I wonder, does the wind there kiss you in my place, does it brush your hair away from your face?

Has the color of your hair lightened under the sun?

Does your smile still remind the world of honeyed daylight?

Whenever I speak about you, little kittens gather at my door and meow your name.

They say you are a flower child.

Colorful butterflies flutter beneath a pastel rainbow, tying bows across the sky.

I lick a caramel ice cream while laughing with my closest friend.

She tells me I am doing much better. I let her hug me, and as we sit together on a bench watching the pink azaleas, I speak about you.

I call you my honey sugar, the cherry on top, and I shout our love to the sky.

The ladybugs laugh at the state I am in.

“Look what that blond boy has turned this once lifeless girl into,” they say.

My love, I used to curse fate because it forced you to leave.

I thought the curse I had carried since birth had ruined us.

But I realized that in order to turn your grey walls into a garden of tulips, you needed to see that someone would try this hard for you.

I think the reason for the leaving was so you could see that I never gave up on you.

Your closest friend, a poet and the fate, once said that our story had been written across all the stars and that I should not be sad.

And now I understand it, my beautiful blond.

This is not a tragedy that will be written into history.

It is a spring love, a pure first love.

I love you.

Your return is very close now, my love.

Sparkles of flower pollen trace a glowing path along the trail.

The sweet whisper of a plump little bee softly spells out my name,

and the gentle glow of fireflies lights your way.

As the time of your return draws nearer,

the dark fog inside my heart slowly dissolves,

and in its place colorful butterflies begin to flutter.

I sit in a garden, the warmth of sunlight resting softly on my skin.

I am reading a love story, just like the one I read when you first disappeared.

I brew a cup of tea and the warm steam rising from it gently warms my soul.

I open a poloroid of you.

Once I used to say this was not love.

I was afraid to admit that it was love.

I called it affection, or maybe just a simple liking.

But now when people ask me about you, I tell them openly that I am in love with you.

They seem to like it too. They enjoy seeing the little dimple on my cheek,

that special smile that appears only when I speak about you.

I bought a dreamcatcher for my room, my love,

so now I see you in every single dream.

I want to cut my hair just like yours,

so that we can become completely the same person,

so that even in the mirror I will see you.

Your arrival is so close now.

When you come back, after we eat strawberries, I will kiss your soft cheeks with the sweet taste still left on my lips.

Beside the flowers that bloom only at night, I will make love to you.

In the room of your mother’s house we will get high together.

On that childhood bed of yours I will give you everything you want.

A shooting star will pass across the sky, and our only wish will be each other’s name.

I will wear blush the soft pink color that flowers take when they bloom,

so the shy redness beside you will disappear.

You will call me your beautiful azalea flower,

and I will swear that I will give my whole life to you.

You will hide a violet between the pages of a poetry book for me to find.

In the sweet honey scented air I will give you the sun as a gift,

and you will ask me for the moon.

My beautiful love, your return is so very close now.

All the tears that gathered during this cold winter

have turned into laughter

whenever I remember your sweet smile.

I know that you miss me.

In every girl you see, you search for my face.

You thank fate for letting you meet me,

for giving you a way to escape your cold life.

You pray to God that I will never give up on you.

You even tell your friends that one day you will marry me.

If you had allowed it, I would have already told you

that I swore to God long ago that I would save you.

But you do not want to know this yet.

Your fear of loving without turning back

is what makes you feel so close to me.

When summer comes, my love,

I will swear every oath there is

You are my daisy that blooms in spring,

bright and shimmering, and you smell like my hopes.

You are golden and white.

You opened in the golden hour, kissed by the sun,

when you were already the sun.

When I see you, the sky becomes a rainbow.

You are every color, even colors that do not yet exist could come from you.

My beautiful golden daisy.

A sweet coincidence made us fall in love,

and now I can shout the word

I was once afraid to say.

I am in love with you,

yes, completely, entirely, endlessly.

When the fairy lights touch the heavenly garden where you grew,

I stand there in quiet wonder.

I begin to believe in God because you are so beautiful that you must be a special grace of His.

A flower of heaven.

Last night I found a video

where you smiled for just a second.

I thought your smile reflected the light of God.

Maybe that is why you smile so rarely.

You are so beautiful.

I want to devote my life to you, my honey flower.

To prove my love for you,

I would tear every other flower from its roots

and lay them at your feet.

The gentle breeze of spring reminds me of you.

Once I thought you were a freezing winter

and that I was only a child selling matches in the cold.

Now I think you are a soft spring morning,

one that wraps itself around the world with quiet warmth.

And I am a bee, grateful that the flowers have begun to bloom,

ready to give all of my honey.

The willow trees whisper to me that you are on your way.

I count their leaves with excitement.

I kiss the butterfly larvae so they will greet you for me.

And every time the sun comes out,

I giggle softly.

While eating a fruit tart I sketch your smile.

I am wearing a dress covered in strawberries

and I imagine your kind soul.

My heart begins to beat faster.

I write with a soft lilac pen,

as if the page itself were spring.

The birds sing to me and I make a quiet wish,

inviting them to our little tea party.

They place a crown of flowers on my head

and whisper that they have made one for you too.

They say when you arrive and kiss me beneath the pink sky,

they will give it to you

To the king of swords;

I am waiting with violets in my hand

that will bloom in the middle of spring.

I have prepared a bouquet for you,

and a locket with your initials in it.

I wrapped each one in blue orchid petals.

I wonder how you have been.

Does the sunlight smile at you?

Have you finally stopped frowning?

March brought me a soft, sweet hope,

almost like a gentle hug in the morning.

I sit for hours on a hidden bench in that garden, thinking of you.

I wonder, before you left, had you ever

seen that bench? Had you ever sat there?

From here, you can look at the bright sky

through the tall willows.

I know, as surely as my own name,

that you would love this place, because these

willows hide the bench and whoever sits there.

When you arrive, I will prepare a picnic basket.

I will fill it with strawberry cakes and daisies,

and I will place my heart inside as well.

Will your hands accept my heart

while you taste the strawberry cake

and breathe in the daisies?

Will you notice it resting there,

quietly hidden in the basket,

waiting for you to find it?

I will wear a summer dress, soft pink in color.

On a lightly breezy noon, I will watch you

for a long time, memorizing your face.

A gift from God, perhaps then I will

believe in religion, as if your eyes are the proof.

Maybe I will offer you a kiss.

My red lipstick will taste like watermelon.

I have always adored your silence, your invisibility, and your courage to disappear.

I respected you as a King of Swords.

I bowed before your blade forged crown.

I believed you stood at the highest place a person could reach, a mind sharpened into wisdom.

And though I have always been a quiet admirer of our endless sorrow,

this summer I want to speak out loud,

to make you laugh until you cannot breathe,

to make you stay this time.

I want to surround your kingdom of swords with cups,

to stand beside you as a Queen of Cups,

and to be happy.

I want you to be happy too.

Yes, maybe we become ordinary.

Maybe we close our eyes to the depth life offers.

But is it not better this way?

than drowning in a deep ocean covered in sorrow,

to close our eyes and ears

It feels as if spring is slowly coming.

Daylight gently hurts my skin.

Not like the flame I have always been scorched by inside,

it burns with a sweet hope, and that gives me peace.

Even though it is February, sometimes the air becomes so bright

that I think you have come, together with the purple hyacinths.

I used to think that darkness and the endless silence of the night

had hidden my name among its stars.

But this sun whispers to me the day we met,

and now I love waking up to days this bright.

When I first saw you, the sun was brighter than it had ever been,

it was heralding you to me.

You were in those clothes you always wear, covered in black.

It was like the night meeting the day.

There is a moment from that day that I remember,

but you do not.

Before I ever told you my name,

I was watching you from afar.

You were tired of people, you wanted to run,

maybe that is why you did not see me that day.

And you almost bumped into me; of course, it was my fault.

I froze when I saw you, because for a month

I had been counting the days to see you again.

Lately, I keep thinking about that moment.

It leaves a quiet smile on my lips.

On sunny days, I watch from afar

the place where you almost bumped into me too,

as if the air there still remembers you.

I still haven’t found the courage to go there again.

Maybe I will today.

Sometimes I carry the weight of that day

for not walking toward you,

for imagining you alone,

and for letting your loneliness pass through my hands.

Even before we knew each other,

I feel as though I should have protected you

instead of choosing silence.

But I feel like you will be back very soon.

I imagine us sitting by a lake surrounded by pink azaleas,

or lying on the grass in a careless afternoon,

and I am laughing softly

as I insist, almost stubbornly,

on making you eat the cookies I brought.

Before I found you, during that first time you left,

I was always reading the same book,

sitting by the window,

right across the place where we collided that day.

The book told the story of a love set in a summer patisserie.

Even now, as I write this, I find myself smiling.

Those days still make me so happy.

I think they were the most beautiful times of my life.

It was a hope wrapped in pink ribbons.

And finally, I have risen from the grief I was drowning in.

We could still go to that patisserie from the book together.

I could kiss you on a spring morning.

I believe this with all my heart.

The first light of this spring has filled me with such a deep peace,

as if I have returned to that memory.

I feel like the blonde girl I was

when I first met you.

I am writing this letter not as a crow standing in a graveyard,

but as the colorful butterfly I once was

when I first met you.

And no matter how much you believe you are a cockroach,

you are my ladybug.

The one that lands on me and brings me love and luck,

that is why, my dear ladybug.

I dedicate all the first days of this spring

to you.

Even though all my seasons belong to you,

I gift this spring to you

and I love you very much.

to a half transparent ghost,

Your silence is a dagger stabbed into my heart, sinking deeper with each passing day.

It kills all hope, all joy.

It kills the little girl inside me before she can even open her eyes.

You are so unanswered that I have thrown myself into a bottomless well,

now waiting to fall.

Wondering what you think, what you feel,

whether you even know at all,

has trapped me inside a ruin

built from the past.

You are a cruel soldier,

guarding a princess entombed in darkness.

Or a hermit,

laughing at the sins of a guilty child.

And here I remain,

standing still, waiting,

fading a little more

with every passing day.

I will try to erase my identity.

I will change my first name to white and escape from the darkness.

I will live without a name, without a self,

until the day I can carry yours,

until your surname is mine.

No one will be able to find me.

I will run so far away.

Yet I cannot even do that,

so that you may reach me.

In my grave adorned with leaves that fell in that September when I first saw you,

I mock the ones who bring flowers.

They return to their light filled lives,

and I call their light a sanctified curse.

All day I search for ways to disappear

so I can never be found again.

I noticed you watched the same videos,

made the same plan,

memorized the same route.

You dared to.

Now when I look into the mirror,

I no longer see the girl who remained chained for years.

I see your pale face.

You are not that invisible, my love.

I still see you in my reflection

between shattered glass,

a half transparent ghost.

I wonder,

when you look through the window of your ruined car,

do you see me too?

Do you drive it uphill

for an endless disappearance?

Do you hear my voice

when you pray to God?

Does He answer you

with my name?

Do you remember me at a funeral?

Was that funeral mine

I buried all my golden hopes

in the sanctuary where I was born.

Last semester felt easier somehow.

I fooled myself into believing you were returning

even though I knew you could not

unless it was summer.

I held onto the miracle of the sun.

I thought you would come for me,

that you would save me

from the eternal darkness

of a shattered cathedral.

Then I would break the vow of chastity.

It would not be a mortal sin

as long as you were the saint.

I feel so lost.

I feel like nothingness,

a black void.

I keep asking for forgiveness,

but the only answer I receive

is the silence of the Holy Ghost.

Last semester I remained the hopeful sinner

I have always been.

I believed God would absolve me,

would release me from the flames I was burning in

into a garden paradise you once ran into.

I thought that if I could hear even a single word from you,

the poison within the venomous fire burning me would lessen

even if I willingly remained inside the flames.

The only reason I kept living,

the only reason I continued my life and studying,

was you.

I wanted you to feel proud of me when you returned.

I wanted to become successful enough to stand close to you.

I succeeded, but where are you?

How many more times must I continue in this life

when the only thing I truly want is to break, to let go, to stop?

But when I stop, what I feel is not a gentle sleep

it is being swallowed by nothingness,

being erased without making the slightest effort.

It feels like I am supposed to keep running,

yet I lie on the ground, trapped in time,

praying without moving.

Once I felt forced to join that race.

I walked along the paths carved out by others

and while they try to return to their warm homes,

my destination was to kiss an invisible angel

on the edge of a locked abyss.

Once I told a friend,

I need someone in order to keep living.

I can only continue my life for someone else.

There is a girl in my class.

I hate her. I absolutely hate her.

It is strange for me.

I am not a person of strong emotions.

People usually pass through me without leaving a bruise.

But this girl reminds me of the will to live.

She overflows with life while I am the wife of the pale rider,

bound to him eternally.

It has been a long time since I married death itself.

I can see the light of life in her eyes.

I can hear the longing to be alive.

Her laughter feels warm and effortless.

It spills sunlight into the Mathematics department

while I chose this place

to remain beneath a cold silver moon.

She loves people.

She loves feeling with them.

While I had surrounded myself with swords built to pierce anyone who dared to come close to me,

except on that september morning

I drove those same swords into my own heart

just to make a path for you.

Whenever I see her, I hate her even more.

Her need to be heard stands against my vow of silence.

You would hate her too.

Whenever she sits right behind me

everyone can see birth and death standing beside each other,

as if she has just arrived from God’s side

while I prepare myself for Lucifer’s flames.

Everyone can witness the beginning of a beautiful life

and its slow fading into darkness

at the very same moment.

And I repeat myself again and again.

I do not even care

My love, I hated today.

I hated it so deeply that I felt myself drowning in my own tears.

Today school began, and all my effort to remain invisible dissolved into complete emptiness.

I became painfully aware of my own existence, like a crow locked inside a cage made of gold.

Somehow, I am always seen.

Observed. Examined. Quietly watched.

Perhaps it is because I still stand too sharply against the world.

I cannot receive what I feel I deserve.

In return for all this pain, I cannot close the curtain of invisibility that should belong to me.

Instead, it remains open, yet feels as though it is collapsing inward, pressing against my chest and suffocating me beneath its weight.

Even after all this effort,

all the labor I have poured into simply standing here,

I crawled my way toward the place I have wanted my entire life.

Yet it still does not feel like enough.

Its absence of fullness wounds me.

It almost resembles grief.

I love learning. I love the moment I receive a good grade.

For a few seconds, it gently covers the endless void inside me.

While you were here, you burned that void into ash.

Perhaps I am ungrateful.

Instead of being thankful for where I stand, I am still dancing inside the circle I built out of pain.

My feet have begun to burn, but if I stop dancing, I fear I will be consumed by the coldness of endless ice.

I want to escape.

I want to swim through a bottomless ocean until I drink the entire sea.

I want to walk into empty space and silence while severing all of these threads.

These blue threads have tied themselves around every part of my body.

A different thread coils around each of my fingers, except the one on my ring finger, because I saved it for you.

I wish I were as brave as you, able to leave everything behind and accomplish that grey, mist covered escape.

But I think I am not enough like you.

I fear I am not made of the same fire as you.

Even if I am resentful because of this canonized sorrow you gave me,

I suppose what I truly feel is admiration.

You shattered and cast away the pure white halo above your head,

yet I cling to these faded horns resting upon mine.

In a place where you have gone to pay your penance,

I remain in bouts of sleeplessness, kneeling in prayer throughout the night.

If my prayers come true, either you will return,

or I will find your shattered halo and wipe my horns with it,

no matter how much it hurts.

After all, the body is weak, but the spirit is willing.

The pain endured by the body strengthens the soul.

And when my soul grows strong enough, I will burrow my way back to you.

I promise.

I promise.

I promise.