#just.. writing

It was too hot beneath the blankets and yet I found myself shivering without them. No amount of turning off annoying lights or electronics helped the noise that circulated all around me. Drowning out the business that made the atmosphere around me so heavy with calming music did little aid. Every usual trick I knew that had helped me settle down failed me.

Perching myself on the edge of the bed the cigarette I had lit had burned halfway down with barely a single drag taken, wasting away much like myself just then. Despite the menthol taste that I so liked, I sampled nothing but ash upon my tongue. My lips remained dry no matter how many times I drug my tongue across them and my entire body seemed to ache and throb. That sick feeling that had visited me day after day lingered between my stomach and throat, indecisive if it wanted to be regurgitated or remain there. The thought of reaching out to someone occurred to me but something within myself forbade me from doing just that. Wouldn’t it be so easy to just message someone, call up a friend? I am not sure why I was stopping myself, contradicting my own will. 

I snuffed out the cigarette that had nearly burned down to the filter and crawled back into bed. My hands wandered in some phantom feeling I could hold onto something close to me when I was my myself and fully aware no one would be coming home any time soon, much less appear in my bed. And yet, the tips of my digits managed to slip into the pocket of my sweater. Within I felt the smooth surface of something small, a stone? A gem. Why was there- of course. It was a gift I had been granted not too long ago. One nearly forgotten. Retrieving the precious tone, it was much too dark to truly make out it’s intricacies and still I made a good attempt to recall just exactly which hues harbored and meshed within it. How long ad it taken the earth to craft this and just whom had stolen it from her? What sort of journey had it gone through until it found it’s way into my possession and did it truly belong to me?

Just as my mind filled with so many questions the small, seemingly inconspicuous item in my grasp began to grow inexplicably warm. So warm I nearly relinquished it if it had not been for that twice occurring phantom knowledge I was meant to hold on to it. The heat it emitted spread and overtook me and my eyes pressed closed until the skin surrounding them crinkled. The sensation of falling rushed to me and i could only comprehend it as loss of balance, something that happened to me often. This was different however as everything changed.

The air smelled different, the temperature wavered to a comfortable degree and air circulated around me, completely unlike air conditioning. It took me a moment to decide if I should dare open my eyes. When I finally did, I was met with something so unearthly I fathomed I had likely left my plane of existence.

The beauty around me stunned my into silence. A thick canopy of verdant leaves allowed sparse shafts of brilliant light to pierce through. The mossy bed beneath me was softer than any bed I had ever lain in. My ears adjusted and a symphony of rustling leaves, birds and bubbling water triumphed over the ear grating static of my home. Everything around me was in harmony, blooming, growing, flourishing. Alive. 

Each blade of grass, each flower petal, each leaf had a bright soul. I suddenly felt the need to sit up and check if I wasn’t crushing some insect or bud, fearing that if I was, I had committed a horrific crime. A small, pink earth worm was sure glad to not be suffocated any longer as it was free to crawl on along when I erected myself. 

I took a deep, deep breath and let the fresh, untainted air expand my lungs to their fullest. It was a breath without pain, the first of it’s kind for as long as I could remember. I didn’t get dizzy or light headed. No... just nourished. 

I stood up and followed that persistent phantom feeling the stone imbued me with until I reached that babbling brook that had been whispering to me since I had arrived. The water was crystal clear, untarnished and sparkling. I didn’t even have to taste it to know how refreshing it would feel. I set the precious gem down on the edge of rounded and smooth stones that the water was pooling into. It was deeper than I had expected, once I peered into it’s depths. So deep in fact, I could not spot it’s bottom. Just another surprise, a pleasant one. I was overcome with a deep rooting desire to take a sip. To let the water heal my splitting lips and wash away the ashy taste on my tongue. To drink from it so deeply that it would drown out the sickness I had been carrying with me. For a moment I wondered if I deserved it, if i was worthy of such a pure gift. Had I even permission? Did I need permission? I thought to myself that it was best to indulge myself while I could, before it vanished like most everything else good in my life. 

My hands dipped beneath the rippling surface, cupping as much of it as I could and even so it sought to escape through the cracks between my fingers again and again. Desperate then I leaned forward far enough until my lips touched the pure liquid. And when it rushed past them, down my throat and into my body, everything else ceased to matter. I was overcome with a strange heaviness, one not at all suffocating. A comfortable weight that pulled me further down and fall I did.

Without fear, I began sinking into the depths until the light of the forest above the water shrunk smaller and smaller. Until it was just a drop in the distance above with glittering bubbles of air drifting past me to go to opposite way. As the little spheres sought to go up, I only longed to sink deeper. 

I didn’t need air anymore. I didn’t need light anymore. I didn’t need a steady ground beneath me or the wind in my hair. I didn’t need to hear the voices of the world any longer and instead only heard the sound of ever enveloping water that surrounded me without fail. 

I had no more worries. I had no more concerns. I wasn’t lonely or lost anymore. I wasn’t sad or panicked. I had no more fear. 

I was swallowed by something that sought to take me within as much as I sought to be within it.

I was home. And I was welcomed home.