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Writer's picturelolade Alaka

One Eighty: Part 1

Updated: May 1, 2021

"The human mind has a primitive defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It is called 'denial'."


Empty

Alone

Vast void in my heart

Know how I feel

Feel how I feel

Then maybe I would not feel so alone

I want to forget, yet I desperately want to remember

If I forget, you’ll be deader than you already are

Then I will be dead

I need to keep remembering you

I need others to know you


April

April makes art

That’s all she does

Something comes upon her

A spirit, and she makes art

That’s all she knows

And grief

April knows grief too

For a long time grief is all April has known

And now,

Grief is all she feels

It is the air she breaths

It flows through her being

Like oxygen, it pumps in her heart, in her blood

It feeds her brain

It emits with her carbon dioxide to form and mold her consciousness, her aura

It forms her spirit

Everything about her speaks of true, deep grief

Disconnected from what is real, her heart and soul have drifted away to find whatever it is that she has lost

They will not give up on their search, they maybe never will


I was April

I was April but now I am lost.

That time very long ago, I was very very happy

I had love


My eyes flip open.

It is daytime

The stream of blinding light in my face is not a surprise

It has been day time for a long time

Only, I did not want to admit it until the last possible minute when I cannot evade

the inevitability of being alive any longer

Lying in bed motionless is becoming impossible

The sheet is too rumpled from my incessant tossing and turning

The new mattress is hard

I have thrown out the old one because it had his smell all over it and thinking of

him was too hard

Irrational, I know

He is coming back.

It isn’t like he is gone forever!

But somehow, six months feels like a long time

I don’t want to spend it all thinking about him

And so I need to minimize my contact with anything that reminds me of him

Which is impossible anyway, since this entire house is stamped with his essence

His smell

His sound


I look around the room, and I see him move about, a towel wrapped around his lower body,

He is getting his clothes from the polished wooden dresser, his handwork, while swabbing another towel through his dark black hair

I can see distinctly the water escape in droplets from the ringlets of hair to fall to his slim, pronounced nose

I watch the drip drop trickle down to the floor from the tip of his nose as he listens attentively to me talking

Only, I am not talking anymore, I have stopped to watch him

I watch him as he moves

His presence, his being, commanding the space as he moves around in long, confident strides from one spot to another

My protector, my soldier

I feel strength in him

He turns abruptly to look at me

He has noticed I am not talking anymore

And he has stopped to watch me too

He moves his lips perhaps to ask why I had stopped or to tell me to continue

But no words come out

Or perhaps I just cannot hear as I am now lost in the depth of his pale, bottomless grey eyes

And then he is gone

Or I have woken up from a dream I am not aware I am dreaming

I blink

And I feel a fleeting need to wail

I look up to the ceiling, the wood panel stripes

He is gone

Chance

I jerk, opening my eyes suddenly, and sit up

It felt like an electric shock had just jolted me awake

Or like I was falling fast and suddenly wasn't falling anymore

Did I sleep without knowing and have just woken up again

Or did I dream what seems like the last few minutes

I rub my eyes roughly with the back of my palms

I am not looking forward to today.


Watch out for Part 2 next Sunday.

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