3:30 pm

they say the eyes are the window to the soul. take a peek inside and you’ll be able to witness a flash of their entire existence, a snippet of their soul. who they really are.

today, that saying has never been more true for me.

i was on the verge of submerging myself into chaos the minutes prior to 3:30 pm. then when i saw you, it was like every single feeling of uncertainty and nervousness was washed away to sea, sinking into the depths of the ocean and disintegrating for good. i forgot instantly how terrifying this moment was supposed to be, and instead, found a certain solace in hearing your voice again.

so we talked. like old times. our conversation was relatively normal, save a few moments of silence, but like always, that silence was never a burden. it blanketed us gently, giving us security in knowing that nearly nothing has changed. despite being two completely different people, we’ll always be comforting presences for one another. some things never, ever change.

your eyes are a dead giveaway. the way you search my face, the way you look at me like you want to remember every detail about me and this moment. even though the gaze is comfortable, reserved and ever so curious, i look into your eyes and i can’t seem to figure them out. they’re an enigma. i can’t figure out what you’re thinking about, but at the same time, i know exactly what you’re feeling. i think it’s because i feel it too.

now that you’re here again, i find myself lost but not lost at the same time. my compass doesn’t work in the presence of you. it never did. there’s a broken mirror between us, shattered and difficult to comprehend, but pieces of the reflection are there. even if we glue the pieces together, i don’t know if we’ll ever be able to heal the destruction our past has created. there will always be cracks in the mirror. the question is whether or not we’ll be able to look past those lines obstructing the view and move on.

for now, the universe has allowed you to be a part of me life once again. fate brought us together once again, and i can’t help but think about how i thought the last page in our book had been written the moment you decided to leave me. i was wrong about that; we were just ending one chapter and beginning a new chapter.

today at 3:30 pm, my life took me on a new path. a path i had restricted myself from going down for the longest time, but a path that i now felt confident in following blindly. you are everywhere around me, silently guiding my conscience, whispering directions into my ear. i’m begging you, please don’t guide me in the wrong direction.

like always, you are accompanying me down a new realm of my existence. i put my blind faith into you, and it will either be the greatest mistake or the greatest fruition of my life.

–

E.L.

smog

uncertainty has been clouding the air in my life for nine months, preventing me from seeing clearly, from seeing  the path i’m to travel down. within the next two days, the smog should clear, and i should see the light. the light of a life with or without you. hopefully this time, the decision is final and the uncertainty should disappear for good. hopefully i won’t suffer anymore. i know that i will suffer temporarily, because i can’t win with you. i lose either way. but hopefully, our fate will be decided upon, and we can put the past to rest.

i’m scared. i’m really, really scared. there’s a deep pit in my stomach that i can’t get rid of. i’m scared of the uncertainty, and i’m scared because the last time i ever looked into your eyes was ten months ago. i’m scared that i don’t know who you are anymore, i’m scared that i am completely unaware of what’s going to happen.

two days.

until then, you’ll remain the only thing that i can think about, lingering in my mind as i attempt to keep the rest of the components of my life in check.

despite being scared of the fact that i don’t know who you are anymore, some things never change. you’ve always known how to derail me.

submersion

i thought, for the longest time, that you were just going to be a memory. after the storm, i shelved the memories of you away, leaving them in the restricted section that’s buried at the back of my mind. i began to recover, and once i did after those treacherous nine months, you crashed into me at full speed. completely unexpected. whiplash threw me off track and i found myself lost, yet again. you brought a whole sleigh of new emotions with you, delivering them to me like Santa does to a child on Christmas Eve.

the problem is, i never wanted it. i never wanted you back.

i was perfectly happy with the life i was living without you, and if you asked me two months ago how i felt about you, you’d receive an answer complete with indifference, a little bit of antipathy and a little bit of hurt. the hurt never went away, but the pain that felt like a thousand knives gutting me and bleeding me dry was gone. it was just the pain from your absence, from the remnants of you.

if you ask me how i feel about you today, i would be at a loss for words. it wouldn’t be indifference, it wouldn’t be antipathy, but rather you would find me at a crossroads. a disorienting dilemma that has caused me to question the entirety of our history. everything is different now.

everything would’ve been so much easier if i was forever under the impression that i never, ever meant anything to you. for nine months, i thought i was crazy about someone who thought of me as a game. the thrill of the chase. then, you got bored of me and left without a single explanation. that was my reality for nine months. what that did to me was make me question my very own sanity as a human being. if what we had wasn’t real, then what is real? in the end, who would’ve ever been able to guess that i am so, absolutely, incredibly wrong about that? that i had the same effect on you as you did me? that we still cross each others minds, that even after almost a year of radio silence, we are still in each other’s lives.

you have completely immersed yourself in my thoughts. i’m thinking about you even more now, more than ever before. your words weigh me down, they’ve unlocked a whole new level of heartbreak i never knew existed. a deeper, less superficial version. a new kind of heartbreak that stems from realizing how much we both care about each other, but being at a loss for what the next step is. there is an invisible barrier between us and we can’t seem to figure out how to break it down.

i know until i’m able to face you in person, the unknown is vast. the space between us is suffocating. there is so much that is still there, but we don’t know what to do with it.

i guess like most other things, only time will be able to tell the outcome of us. for now, however, i am submerged by the very thought of you.

 

–

E.L.

you, me, and the unknown

you’ve always known how to turn my world upside down. you have no problem tipping it over and emptying all the contents of my life onto the floor in front of me, leaving me to clean up the mess you made. leaving me to sort through the pieces of the devastation, trying to find some kind of true meaning behind your actions. you have the ability of a thousand asteroids on me, crashing into my soul and infiltrating it with ease. every word you say to me has the effect of a thousand more. every emotion when felt with you is felt by tenfold.

the first message was bad enough. it already had the ability to shatter my fragile heart after the initial heartbreak, and just when i thought the worst was over, you barge in yet again and prove me wrong. the second message was calamitous. the second was written with such raw, profound emotion that any and all of my previous suspicions of your feelings being fabricated for some ulterior motive were washed away immediately. there is no ambiguity anymore. the fog has parted and i can see you at the end of the path.

the first wasn’t enough, and the closure that it was supposed to bring only pushed opened the door further. now, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. a crevice of mixed emotions between two people who inexplicably managed to ruin each other beyond comprehension without knowing it. a tangible tension pollutes the air, thick and oppressive, uncertain yet certain at the same time. you are a solace in my life while simultaneously being the demon in my nightmares. how that can be is a mystery to me, but it is simply a truth that cannot be hidden.

in a short time from now, i will be face to face with you. i’ll be able to look into your eyes again and see the universe i always saw in them, something i thought i’d never do again. it petrifies me, because your presence might break down my walls. by willingly allowing myself to be in the same space as you, i am so incredibly vulnerable, susceptible to the darkest and most intimate of emotions.

the gray area has spread to cover all of the space between us. there is no black and white, no right or wrong. it’s gray because there is no telling how dangerous seeing each other for the first time in nine months is. it is unknown. as we all know, the unknown is to be feared.

 

–

E.L.

the remnants of you

there are people in this world that will leave a permanent impression upon your life. they will change you in ways you never could’ve imagined, they will make you feel new feelings that you never knew existed, they will plant themselves into your soul and their roots will never disappear from your soil. without a doubt, there is a person in this world that is capable of dealing such catastrophe to your existence.

for me, that person was him. 

i’m only 19; i had absolutely no idea that he would turn my world upside down. i never intended on letting him be that person, but i would quickly learn to realize that it’s not my decision to make. it’ll never be your decision to make. we can’t pick and choose who gets to affect us to this degree; that’s what makes us so vulnerable. these kinds of people tend to walk into your existence by accident, and you don’t realize just how crucial they are to your human experience until they set off a cosmic explosion in your stars. they form a galaxy in your universe, and then in just a blink of an eye, everything is different.

they may stay, they may drift, they may leave, but their impression won’t budge. it stays pressed into your being, delicately altering your chemistry. they are someone completely and utterly unique, and you will feel it in your gut. everything will feel like a dream when you are with them. it’s utter bliss, completely serene.

if you’re lucky, these people will never leave. they will burn bright and give you the light you need to flourish. but some of us are not that lucky, unfortunately, and we have to learn to deal with the absence of them. i was one of the unlucky ones. when he left, i wilted and decomposed, drifting among the unknown. he’s gone, and when given the opportunity to reconnect, i chose to never let him in again. it was one of the hardest decisions of my life.

but you have to trust your gut, and trust the world, because you have to have faith that there are others like him in this world like him. maybe not just like him, but just enough like him to cause another big bang. it’s blind instinct and pure risk.

even though he’s gone, shards of his words are cemented into my heart and flashes of the feelings he gave me pulse across my veins. he still affects me in inexplicable ways, nearly a year later.

there are remnants of him in my soul, and there always will be.

–

E.L.

memento mori

so it goes.

i’ve always been an explorer, particularly of the music kind. i love discovering new songs, new artists, new genres. in particular, i used to listen to (but fell out of touch with) hip hop and rap. i rediscovered the genre not too long ago, after stumbling across music from mac miller. i was instantly hooked. though he wasn’t an artist i frequented, he always remained at the back of my mind, reminding me how i found my way back to one of my favorite types of music. he did a lot for me, and i always looked up to him as a talented, ingenuous, grounded, influential, and highly respected musician. you don’t find many of those anymore.

the news hit me like a punch in the gut that friday afternoon. my heart dropped when i heard about your terrible fate. i didn’t focus on class for the rest of the day. i couldn’t believe it. you didn’t deserve that. you had so much going for you. i’m so sorry that you were yet another victim to such an overpowering demon.

then, i delved deeper into your music. i barely even scratched the surface of your discography. there were so many songs i never knew about, yet didn’t get to experience until now. i feel awful. i wish i had appreciated you more earlier. you wrote a song standing up to our president, you spoke against him in a defiant stance that proved you knew how to use your platform. you used it for good. for better. and now, your platform is empty, and you won’t ever be able to send your message again. it’s just not fair.

we will remember you. we promise. your legacy will live on. thank you.

i think for us, this is a reminder that life is so, so precious. it can slip between our fingers at any moment, even if we think we’re grasping onto it. even if we think we’re surviving. i think we often forget how fragile we are as a species, how delicate our bones are and soft our skin is. we like to think of ourselves as superheroes, these amazing creatures that will be prospering for eternity. we often forget about our own mortality. what makes that so devastating, is that we are shaken to the core the very moment we are reminded firsthand that life isn’t everlasting. with every single reminder, we slowly begin to realize that our seconds are ticking away. they could be ticking away for the next 70 years of our lives, or our final tick could be within the foreseeable future. we never know. and that’s what terrifies us. we are only human.

so never forget. memento mori.

–

E.L.