As you are reading this, I am killing myself. Do not feign trepidation. I am taking a blade to my malignancy. You will not recognise me tomorrow.
There comes a time when every human must throw back their head and permit howls of sheer agony to burn the length of their throat. The spaces between the stars hold healing properties for those who open their mouths to the vastness; I’ve heard of the night sky swallowing sorrow whole. So here I sit with eyes cast into the darkness, filling my lungs with the milk of midnight.
Nostalgia has been torturing me for thirteen months and counting; I’ve twined memories around my jaundiced wrists like rosaries. I am perpetually pained by the realisation that these retentions amount to nothing. As I write this, the gentleman I covet is having his ochre flesh kissed by a woman who doesn’t appreciate poetry or light mulberry candles in February. She does not collect letters on her bookshelf or pin faux flowers in her hair, but I can guarantee that her heard throbs harder than mine, that her blood is richer and brighter. I was wrong in believing myself to be more marvellous than her. I imagine she loves him openly, honestly, in the ways I never could.
On the cusp of the vernal equinox a man with blonde hair and a barreled chest called me “pretty” as he watched me shower. We melted and congealed as strangers. Sometimes we encounter each other during our lunch breaks, but he’s careful not to let his tourmaline gaze meet with mine. His avoidance has bruised the velvet lining of my heart, reminding it how easily its affection can be brushed away and forgotten.
And then there’s the gentleman with wisterias in his smile – they haven’t ceased blooming since his intertwined vines with mine last summer. Deft fingers shower me with perse petals but he does not know the extent to which they smother me. It’s impossible, he is beyond besotted. It pains me that I cannot breathe in his presence.
In fact, I find it difficult to insufflate with an audience. I. Can. Not. Breathe. People, they stifle me. They pull at my pieces, unaware that the silken sheets falling off in their palms are in fact fragments of the cocoon I’ve worked so gingerly to fashion. I sink into a softer place with every sliver they peel from my shell.
I exist as a catalyst to deep trauma. I am aware of my ability to inflict pain. I fear many things – becoming oblivious to the vivacity of life, allowing creativity to slip through cupped palms – but the threat of my personal power plagues me most. I am filled to the brim with bottled rage, though I refrain from choking out this fire. Simply, I do not know how. My voice will never inhibit the strength to speak with conviction. I am helpless. Without expression, I am nothing.
I am nothing. I am nothing. How liberating. How terrifying.
Sometimes I wonder what insights others will weave into my obituary. Bonnie: A woman who’d pick roses but forget to oblige the steps with a porcelain vase and fresh water. Bonnie: A woman who could write about love but turn the paper into snow, shredding her art into hundreds of pieces. Bonnie: Sensitive but secretive. Bonnie: Creative but cavalier; discerning yet devious; merciful yet manipulative. Bonnie: Beautiful, but not really. Bonnie: A façade.
