Forsaken

Her incoherent cooing resonates around the Pit. She frets and fusses, tugging the remains of my dress down my thighs. I am empty. The shock of it has stripped me of all feeling. And yet i thirst for water, for food... for salvation.

She slides Her bony arm around my waist, lifts me gently off the muck I had festered in for days, the tendrils clutch at me, denying me release. I hear Her nails scrape as She scurries up the wall with me, and the jagged edges of the Pit cut into my skin. Blood spurts out and the warmth of it eases me.

We reach the mouth of the Pit & the light pierces my cornea, shooting a tremor straight into my brain. I have to retch. She gently lays me down at her feet, folds Herself down to my level and pats my cheek, cooing again. "Look" She croaks softly.

The light blinds me for a few seconds and I flinch in pain. I slowly open my raw eyelids and let my vision adjust to the light. I lie on a hearth, too vivid to be real. The shade of green looks unreal, corrupt, … these are no leaves, just blobs of green, clumped together. Garish.

The light that seems to pierce through the wall of green seems to want to gouge out my sight. I throw up and blood trails down my throat, oozing down onto the hearth. She wipes her hand over it and smears it senselessly against the green. "Flowers… pretty flowers" She croons, the tune, a forgotten melody from years past.

She had made this. For me. It is like a child's first painting, globs of colour clumped together. A tale only the child could decipher. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

"See" She croaks. "See" and drags me onto Her lap. Cowering down to my face, Her spine bending to an impossible curve, She touches Her forehead to mine and closes Her eyes. I take a deep breath and close my eyes as well.

When I open them, I see through Her eyes. We are in a clearing within a forest. Sunlight streams through the leaves above. Yellow butterflies flit past us and She giggles in joy. Poppies grew in patches nearby, the petals, the colour of fresh blood.

She grins at me, maniacally. Proud.

My scalp feels Her nails dig into it as She strokes my head. "There, there." She whispers hoarsely. I manage a smile, a thin curve of gratitude on my sunken face.

And so we stay here on the mouth of our Pit, me lying on Her lap and Her, stroking my head. Choosing delusion over reality.

Grey

There is an inexplicable contentment one can derive from the sight of the falling rain and frothy waves beating against the shore. My thoughts are serene and the perpetual churning inside of me is a peaceful simmer now.

I am in Raa Atoll for work and I'm delirious about being free of the draining clutches of Malé City. Even if it is for a little while. Time and time again, whenever I am able to breathe in fresh air and not the thick fog of pollution, disease and despair Malé is immersed in, I reprimand myself for not taking more time away from the city.

It is raining here, delicious thick blobs of raindrops keep pelting against my skin, making me want to curl up inside bed covers and sleep for hours on end. There is so much greenery around me that I feel every string of my brain relax from the tightness they usually are wound up in. Every nerve in my body breathes gratefully for the open air and the occasional wisps of wind it accompanies.

We don’t talk about this enough. We don’t talk about the exhilaration we feel when strolling along the shoreline under a grey sky, thick with clouds impregnated by the oncoming bout of rain. We don't talk about how the air feels against our body or when it is coursing through our lungs, opening up the forgotten crevices of our chest.

I am alone on the beach, this plump stretch of white sand that encircles the island. My feet sink into the wet sand as I walk alone, content in my solitude. Where else in the world can I enjoy this feeling of complete and utter freedom? I belong here. Not in a city that drains the will to live from every pore on my skin. I deserve sand beneath my feet and a grey sky above me.

I deserve this.

Oblivion

I walk under the shade of trees, stepping on scatters of sunshine on the floor. Marble glistens around me and leaves sway above me. Weeping branches of bright green and brown hang overhead, a sharp contrast against the luminous white building that looms over us pedestrians. Beautiful and intimidating at the same time.

I walk to the centre of the square and stare at the ambivalent sky above me. Today is neither warm nor cold. Like nature has taken a slow deep breath. I wonder what is ahead. A storm... or more days of sweat trickling down our backs? Probably the latter.

I seek refuge in the welcoming embrace of more trees reaching for the skies. The bench where I sit is empty and I settle down, taking a long deep breath. Even walking is a trial today. Every step I take is exhausting. Every breath, a chore.

I sit and wait for my mind to take it all in. Flowers, leaves, trees and grass. Things that usually bring a smile to my face. I am surrounded by so much beauty and yet all that is on my mind are these five cursed words.

"What is the fucking point?"

Simple Pleasures

Sitting at my usual cafe, staring at the view outside; a crispy clear sky and a whimsical ocean. Little speedboats zoom past, turning ripples into froth, while larger ships loom dormant in the blue horizon.

Sun beams make the ocean shimmer and the light bounces off the windows, casting the shine onto my spectacles and I am momentarily distracted by the snorkelers that surface and dive right back again into the expanse of the reef and I wonder when I'll ever muster up the courage to tackle my biggest fear. Maybe someday.

I have music in my ears and a book in my hands but I take pleasure in simply sitting there, enjoying the scenery... like I enjoy my own company. There is an inexplicable contentment one can derive from enjoying one's own company. A sense of peace, of independence.

A hearty breakfast is set before me and I indulge, putting aside the book for the time being. Potatoes wedges, sausage, grilled mushrooms and a tomato topped with pesto sauce decorate the plate while three plump slices of bread sit lavishly at the centre. I savour every bite.

I pick up my book, sit back and start reading... and all is right with the world. For now.

Mad World

The heat makes it unbearable. My scalp leaks and trails down my neck, my back and between my breasts. I loathe this heat and this brightness.

I saw a post on Twitter that said that people who suffer from depression experience lower retinal activity, making the world appear more dull, more monochrome.

To me, the colours are too vivid. The world around me is bleeding and brimming over with bright hues...and my eyes cant take it. I need the comforting blanket of grey skies and the occasional chill to stay sane.

The sky is too blue. The sun, too bright.  And the noise is deafening. The world isn't dull. It is overwhelmingly vicious.

And my mind cannot take it.

Relapse

It's February now. And that makes it my fourth month without therapy. I don't recognise what I've become.

My conscience hounds me day and night. “Just start with someone new. You'll ease into it.” It urges me. “It will take months to get there. But you'll feel better again, once you begin talking to a professional. And then you won't feel this way. You won't feel so damned ineffectual.”

In response, Despair rears its head and narrates a thousand reasons why crawling over to a new Therapist and drowning her with my woes is a bad idea. What a daunting task it would be to begin again. How exhausting it would be. How exhausted I already am.

Somehow writing this down makes it sound like an excuse. It makes me sound weak. It makes me sound like a coward. Coward. What an ugly word.

It is beyond self pity, this feeling of worthlessness. And lately I've felt impure. In a spiritual sense. Mind you, not religious. But spiritual. As in; the essence of who I am. I've felt it taint, slowly and irreversibly, I've felt it taint.

I feel useless and worthless… and mostly, I feel like a hypocrite. Qualities that I used to pride myself on have degenerated and withered into pitiful semblances of what once was. I feel intolerant and overwrought and ugly, deep within my soul.

I realise the change in circumstances have forced my hand in some situations, that some insecurities are inherent and that for a while, I had been doing so well. A disciplined intake of antidepressants and regulated sessions with my Therapist had calmed my inner chaos. It had granted me some serenity, helped me gain some perspective.

My Therapist had to move abroad in October. And I'm waiting for her to settle down and arrange her set-up so we can Skype. Till then we chat on Viber. I try not to be an inconvenience. But it's been over three months and I suppose it's time I made a decision. My deteriorating mental state is hurting not just me and my work, but the people I love as well. I need to step up again. I need to help myself so a professional can help me.

The first thing I have to do, though, is cease being so hard on myself. I remember her saying once. “No one can be kinder to you than you, yourself.” I need to carve that into my psyche. And practice it.

Shackles

I feel myself sink into my bed, the mattress, a rotten carcass that envelopes me. The outline of my body rises up around me like immense walls that leak and soak me whole. I feel myself float in the residue of past lives lived and the light above me swims and dims into a sliver.

I am lonely. Lonelier than I've ever been in my life. How am I still breathing? How am I still sane? Why have I not decayed into this bed and become a dessicated corpse that floats in its own waste?

Why hasn't my heart sped up, crashed and entombed itself in stillness?

How much more can my mind take before it grinds to a screeching halt and ceases to humour existence and its infinite capacity for despair?

For how long would I still linger in this body, a shell, that has chained my consciousness to the shackles of time?

One

I feel Her seep into me. Cold and vicious.

I feel Her sliding her feeble limbs into mine, the corrosive muck of Her merge with my gut and Her frantic breathing take hold within my chest. She looks through my eyes and all I see is devastation. She inhales through my mouth and all I can taste is the bitter stench of bile and I can't stomach it. I want to retch.

And my mind fuses with Her's. Once again, I am Her. All I can taste is Her. All I can feel is Her. "I'll protect you" she croons inside my head. I believe Her. She's always been right. Despite the fury that blurred her eyes and unleashed the depraved thing within, She has always been right.

And, yes. She has always, always protected Me.

Back to Her

I float down into the pit, my feet landing firmly on the filth. A trail of hair, vomit and piss cover the remnants of what I used to be, now charred and dried up. I hear a low rasping, a struggle for breath and a wheezing followed by a rattling cough, feeble and spent.

My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see Her lying curled up by the wall, clumps of hair missing from Her head, eyes raw, bloodied and lifeless, lips cracked and blackened. Her body, naked. Long limbs of skin and bones hung to Her sunken frame.

I walk over, lean down and stroke Her head numbly. Weak as She is, She can barely turn Her head up at me, searching with unseeing eyes, pupils dilated and grey. She is blind, I realise in shock.

"Where were you?" She whimpers, Her broken voice barely audible. "Where did you go?"

I weep quietly, for Her and for me.

"I didn't mean to leave you alone." I whisper back. A weak arm stretches towards me, grabs my leg, nails dipping into my flesh. I sit down by Her head, dragging Her onto my lap.

I sit and stroke Her head... almost lovingly. "I told you. I told you." She croaks in her weakened state. "I warned you, didn't I?"

"I know."

Let Her protect you

Let me protect you, She croaks.

I feel Her nails dig into my head and i let the warmth ooze from my flesh and drip down onto my lids, burning... and the iron stench of it numbs my core.

She coils herself around me, giggling in glee. I feel the muck pulling me in, slithering onto my skin and crawling in through my every orifice. Give in, i tell myself. She will protect you.

And now that I think about it... hasn't She always?

Corpses for anguish, Coils for insanity

Your eyes are open and you stand awake. Lucid. Yet the fragments of your nightmares blind your vision and consume you whole.

How do you focus? How do you concentrate?

The room is small. A desk and three chairs. A bed rests next to a window or a wall. You remember few details. You sit infront of her, always the left chair... and you talk to her impassive face that neither comforts you nor disturbs you. You welcome the stoicity. Somehow that makes it easier.

The room outside is bright and rows of chairs are lined by the wall. One chair has a sign that says "Don't sit on me" with a sad face doodled underneath it. You stare at it for longer than you should.

Children's artwork are displayed on a board. Faceless women sit behind a large counter and they avoid your eyes. Perhaps they know. Do you care? No. Not really. Hell with what people think.

She beckons for you to start so you indulge her. Drawl on and on about September and the hells you walk through every year to get past this cursed month. She interrupts you often today. Tells you things you don't want to hear. Perhaps she's right but you don't want to accept it. Perhaps she's wrong and you are right. Perhaps you do deserve it all. Who the fuck knows? Repentance has been ignored in every shape and form it could possibly be ignored in. 

You drone on about minute corpses and obsidion coils with livid scarlet slits. How you are paralysed in sleep when those thick wet coils slither and slap against you like a lover. How terrified you lie when it hisses loudly in your ear. How it haunts you when the corpses open their eyes and out slither thin strands of serpents that entangle themselves around lifeless limbs and feast while you watch. How those nightmares torture you while you stand awake with flashes that interrupt your vision in translucent layers.

She gives you a form, tells you to fill it out. For next week, she says. Something about mindfulness apps and yoga and replacing thoughts or images or some shit or the other. Your head is swimming with detached thoughts. Your brain feels slushy. Slushy. Slushy is a funny word. Does it mean what you think it means? Strange. No. Sluggish. Yes. That is the word. What does slushy even mean?

You walk home in a daze again. The first time you almost walked into a car. Your eyes focus on the puddles again. Reflected blinking neon lights. Nothing soothes you today, though. You come home and your room is a prison and you sit on the floor, immobile. 

She leaves you alone today. You don't really care anymore. You just sit here, mulling over exit strategies in your head. There is nothing and no one. Only the merry-go-around of chaos you are consumed by and the one question that plagues you every minute of every damned day. 

What IS the point of it all?

Moments

It scares me, how brief those moments are. Moments that don’t even last long enough for me to let my guard down and fully comprehend the magic in them. Moments, that despite their abruptness or insignificance in the grand scheme of things, resonate loudly within my cognizance and linger for decades in the darkened corners of my consciousness, glowing within every now and then whenever my mind strays in a mundane meeting or in those moments of quiet contemplation. I crave those moments because they revive me from the numbness that I am consumed by.

My best friend and I sat at “Thinn Ruhh Park” one cold night, chilled by a slight drizzle, watching streaks of lightening slice open the sky above Villingili. Lightning and thunder, phenomena that used to frighten me to my very core, they thrill me now. I welcomed that thrill that day. It crept up the sides of my face and disappeared into my scalp, leaving a trail of tingling skin. I felt no cold. I felt no fear. Only exhilaration.

A tiny hand in mine and a warm little head resting on my chest, low breathing and soft skin that comforts my own. I sat on the sofa watching Ponyo while he lay asleep in my lap, finally quiet. I nibbled at his cheeks and cuddled his chubby little frame. Few things in life feel that pure and comforting.

I lay on a beach one warm afternoon, komorebi on my skin, shades over my eyes, iPod in hand and a soul sister beside me. Erykah Badu and Stephen Marley’s “In love with you” crooned in my ear while I watched the sunlight gleaming in the liquid horizon. Of all the beaches and all the afternoons I lay on them, this one stands out because in that instant, I completely forgot the world. Completely.

Great tales and excellent television, they make me forget all the horrors of this world. Fantasy, in particular. I tend to immerse myself in them, blocking out the white noise that surrounds me. In all honesty, I feel more alive when I’m watching One Piece or Game of Thrones than I do when I’m among people. I engage, I laugh and I am present in that moment when I am with people but a rather large chunk of my consciousness is numb. But not when I’m reading a good book or watching a good show. They rouse the part of me that feels anesthetized.

One night, a friend and i jogged in that would be industrial zone, venturing further inside simply for the hell of it, my paranoia escalating whenever I saw a group of men huddled in the dark. I have a very unhealthy fear of being groped or worse, which I assure you, are for valid reasons. Anyway, we came upon this area of dug earth that was glowing a vivid red from the streetlights on our left. What caught our eyes wasn’t the colour but the pool of water surrounded by those jagged and sharp mounds of red earth much like the terrain of Mars, as shown in movies. It lay pristine and glistening with the reflection of the stars above us. And so we stood at the edge of a world and gazed into the abyss, mesmerized. Far away from here.

I love rain. I truly do. And I like to drive around after it rains. The chill in the air, the sensation of raindrops on my skin and the vivid green of trees after a shower, they make me smile. I feel a static crackling inside me when it rains, like I am tuned to the sound of falling water. After sundown, the puddles reflect the neon signs on store windows. Sometimes I stand still and look at them and feel my brain flare up. A few weeks ago I walked home in the rain after a particularly brutal day and somehow, I wound up frozen on the pavement, transfixed by the reflected lights. Red, white and green. For a brief few seconds, I felt my body come alive and within that period, I felt consoled.

Conversations. Contradictions. Laughter. The feel of soft silky hair between my fingers. The image of eyes that crinkle in the corner. The sensation of hands that cradle my face and stroke my hair. The feel of eager lips on mine, soft and absolving. And the amber of the fairy lights that encase and warm us during these moments, they revive me.

And as short lived as they are, as few and far between as they may be, those moments leave a significant impression. Perhaps I perceive them to be more extraordinary than they really are. Perhaps the certainty of an expiration date makes all of it seem more wonderful than it really is. Perhaps it is simply what Homer stated, that everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. Perhaps that is all it is. I don’t really care.

Because those moments in life that create an impact on my subconscious are rare. And those moments, those brief glitches in time and space that actually allow me to rid my mind of my truth and all that it entails, they make me feel alive. And i would do anything to feel alive.

Creep

It creeps up on me. Inconspicuously at first. A tightening at the back of my neck. Always the right side. The pressure increases as the tightening ascends and it crawls up and over my head, slowly creeping into the back of my eye. It unfurls its limbs, dozens of them, like those growths that spread on the walls of undead games, and seizes the nerves at the back of my eye. Seizes and tightens their grip on them, suffocating the blood vessels until my eye physically throbs in agony.

The limbs contract then, pulling the nerves further in along with it… and then loosens their grip again. This intensifies, both in pace and strength, gradually becoming something like a heartbeat, only it hurts enough to retch and it hurts enough to make my vision swim. And then follows the aching in my jaw.

This onslaught rarely betrays a hint of its arrival. Groggy days followed by sleepless nights are inevitable victims but sometimes, the most intense assaults are unpredictable. Though days that fill me with a sudden surge of euphoria for no apparent reason are always dead giveaways that I will suffer the next day. Something about the chemicals. Drops and surges. They fuck up.

The sun is my enemy. All light is my enemy. Even this dulled screen that I am staring at as i am being battered by a particularly agonizing attack. Nearly 48 hours now. Resilient fucks that they are, they can last for days on end. And sunlight filtering through the trees, one of the few things that give me true pleasure, becomes a trigger that heightens the pain. All blinking lights and loud noises are the same. All they do are enter the orifices in my head and sear into my brain. Sharp and nauseating. 

Sometimes after I manage to sleep for a few hours, i am lulled into a false sense of security… the presumption that it is finally over. But all it does is simply lie dormant for a while. Perhaps in slumber because I rested or just a cunning deviant who enjoyed my delusions. My guess, the latter.

Of late, flashes of light cloud my vision, searing and crippling. Yesterday I found myself incapable of walking right, my feet refusing to obey the writhing coils sending signals from my mind. The flashes come and go but they leave me exhausted. So exhausted that I want to lay my head on whatever horizontal surface I can find. But that doesn’t exactly help either, given that the tightened string at the back of my head can’t bear more pressure. Lying down only increases the pain.

So I thrash around until fatigue claims me. And then I am unconscious, free of the pain for a while... and when I wake, my first thought is a desperate plea that the relief lasts, at least for a little while.

We are all we need

Shrieks of mocking laughter. That is all I hear. Laughter that resonates within my being and every cell i am comprised of protests in denial.

She is back.

And here I thought I understood Her. That She understood me, what little way She comprehends the concept of solidarity. I wonder if it had all been a facade. The helpless madness within Her eyes. How lost She had seemed when She sat stroking my hair for weeks on end.

Her very posture emanated malice now. More than it used to when She first came into being. She is thinner, taller and Her hair, wilder. The shape of Her face is gaunt and yet She looks stronger. Her eyes are slits, red rimmed and deranged. But it's the look within them that petrifies me. She is completely and utterly focused. Focused on me.

I am slumped against the wall, craven and impotent. The walls are bleeding now. Oozing a dark gunk that smells like carcass. I can't move.

"You craven coward." She hisses, reading my mind. Every syllable is coherent and Her voice is clearer. I whimper in terror.

I have never seen Her this controlled. This calm. This sure. Her dress clings to her now. Her breasts heave, Her shoulders protrude and Her legs are unnaturally long.

She scrapes Her nails on the wall and then turns around and stares at me, Her face breaking into a maniacal grin. I watch in abject horror as She crawls swiftly up the wall, cackling all the while. Making sure She had my complete attention. Making sure I saw it all.

I gape in disbelief at Her speed as She crawls on all fours, defying gravity and comes to an abrupt halt right over my head, Her body upside down. "Hello, Poppet." She hisses... and plunges Her nails into my forehead. I bleed then. Over my eyebrows and into my eyes. I bleed.

The pain is like nothing i've felt before. I realise now that She had held herself back all this time. She hacks deep into me, brutal and relentless. I scream and scream as Her body slides down the length of me, feeding as She went along. "I'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry." I plead.

She doesn't care. Her body is larger now. Or I am smaller. Somehow i am in Her lap and She holds me by my frail hair. Nails tear into my face as She trails her fingers along it.

She holds me by the jaw and waits till the spasms cease within my body. Waits till I can focus. Agony subsides and I grope around for a hold. I see the slits and I focus on them. "You pathetic little fuck." She whispers.

I wince.

"You let them do this, you know. You let them. You bring this upon yourself. All of it." I weep in silence. My eyes sting from the blood and yet I don't brush it away. I deserve this. I know.

She stares at me then. For a long time. I stare back, body braced for the inevitable. And then She shakes Her head and Her face clears. Her eyes grow larger, less terrifying. Her expression wanes and becomes less cruel.

"I understand now." She says to me in my voice. "Not long now, coward. Hold on."

I stare at Her, willing Her mind to echo what is in mine. And then i feel my strings connect with Her static and fuse into one. And i nod in agreement.

"Wakatta"

Images, memories & lost hopes.

You know that space between waking and dreaming where your body twitches, your eyelids flutter and your breathing switches from rapid to deep and back again on a loop? That is when my mind lets me view forgotten memories, like a ghost floating from the walls of my consciousness, into settings of times past.

A darkened room i lay in, with sunlight filtering through the curtain, my fingers trailing skin that had warmed me, all those long cold nights.

The patio of a cousins home in our island where once we sat, cradling seashells in our hands.

Classrooms that I walked to and from that echoed with excited laughter and innocence lost.

Walking through the graveyard, lingering where my great grandmother rested, watching rain drip down her tombstone and seep into the ground where she lay, I hoped, in peaceful repose. I was often told that I was her little doppelganger.

Bright lights that flickered above me while I lay cowering in pain on an unyielding hospital bed.

A bloody sunset that draped us in amber while we ran in unrestrained delight on a beach, chasing translucent little crabs into the waves.

These moments that still dwell in my subconscious mind, despite their insignificance, they flare up when my body falls into that state. And I am reminded of who I was and what it felt like to be me, right then and there. Those memories, they melt and dissolve into one another. Some, coherent strings of thought, while others are flashes of light, speech and faces.

I am mostly aware of it when it happens and i let it flood me, though there are moments when a part of me gropes around for a hold on reality. But still, i am at peace when i'm in that state, where I am neither awake nor asleep but simply suspended in an undemanding void that coccoons me.

I welcome it everytime.