Category: Literature

I know I have a single task: a journey of hope undertaken to end all this. In my dreams I was told hope would be there. I heard it among my silent whispers. It was calling me. It needed me as much as I needed it. I have always hated the loneliness of this methane-reeking hell. My lungs can no longer endure the stinging air of this place. I want to set my misery aside and take the road to which fate is leading me.

I jumped aboard a ship about to depart. No one asked why I was there. It felt as if the universe itself were summoning me. I wished they would receive me like a king—even knowing they would not. Sometimes you cannot know where fate will carry you until you set out. The hardest thing is to guess what the first steps will bring.

There is a hope waiting for me in the distance—I know it. I keep repeating this to myself. A continuity… a great stillness. Isn’t happiness often like that? As naïve as letting our first expectations stretch out over time. Time slows. Everything around me turns into a shaft of light. Even the sounds don’t reach me as they used to in the endless dark. I am drifting in a void where time and matter do not exist.

I want to close my eyes. After everything, this burden has begun to feel too heavy. With each passing minute… it’s as if I’m leaving years behind me. I’ve begun to catch the scent of a drought I do not know. Where am I? It told me to leave the ship. Without questioning, I stepped down, slowly. I had learned long ago what it is to be abandoned. In a place I had never known, in an absence I had never known… I trusted it.

I think this is the place I’ve been seeking. This desolation is my home. This is my only hope. I realized it when everything around me began to blur. It was a dream. From the body stretched upon the cross, I let the last drop of my blood fall to the earth.

Is this me? The person in the mirror smiling into my own eyes. The first to grasp the meaning of the words that fall from my mouth—or the one who, not knowing what to do, punches walls and believes that the slightest physical pain will soothe the ache in their soul… I don’t know this person.

I want to be the child I’ve forgotten. I don’t want to become someone else. I truly hate it. I spew mouthfuls of curses. I seize every chance to inflict pain on myself. I bite my lips to keep from unleashing what’s inside me. I resign myself to the fact that I can’t bring myself to say “fuck off.” I don’t deserve to be this person.

My feet tremble with rage. I repeat to myself that no one must recognize who I really am. I want to be alone. I miss myself. I don’t want to offer my face to just anyone—yet they look at me and whisper only “hi.” Even if my entire body stood perfectly still, I couldn’t hide the truths in my eyes.

I want to ask questions. I don’t even know why. I keep repeating myself. I’m so angry at myself. Living is the source of all pain. I’d do anything to escape this. Maybe only in eternal sleep will I find peace.

With every letter, pieces of my soul vanish. I’m misunderstood—even by myself. I want to do nothing, but even that feels impossible. I can’t close my eyes for more than a few minutes. I can’t believe that the life replaying before my eyes like a film reel is mine.

I don’t want to keep running. I don’t want to humiliate myself any further. I can’t escape—nothing can be as far from me as myself. I want to leave it all behind, but I don’t even have the courage. I lie to myself, saying I love solitude, but I never want to return to that hell again.

Among people, I keep smiling. I try to tell them about my pain. For a moment, I feel relief, but it only climbs higher. Please, just leave me be. I want to leap from the glass skyscraper that haunts my dreams. I can’t bear the agony of living any longer.

I don’t want to stop. I know if I do, I’ll start thinking. So long as I keep moving, I keep convincing myself. I tell myself over and over that my life isn’t worthless, yet here I am, feeling like a worm just for writing this. Again and again, I want to shout “fuck off”—to everything… to the ceaseless motion around me… to this outward shell I wear.

I want to be free. From all of you. From myself. I repeat my own words in an effort to find strength, but nothing ever changes. I remain stuck at this same crossroads. I want to break my hand—despite all the measures I take to hide the bruises on my joints…

And I laugh…

We had agreed that the greatest revenge is to vanish from Your dreams. To cease waking in terror in the dead of night. To no longer behold Your sweat-drenched face beneath the dim light. To forget that You have forgotten, right there in the heart of darkness. To begin anew with the birth of morning’s first light. To witness the healing of a heart struck a thousand times. To know no more fear. To leave behind a shattered vase. To heed not the shards of glass embedded in my feet. To make peace with the blood that flows.

At least this is how I fool myself: As if I do not see You everywhere I turn. As if I do not yearn for You even in my most secret hours. As if I do not tremble at the thought of losing You for even a single breath… I long to seek refuge by forgetting You. I know I love You, yet I pour oceans of water over the flames within my heart. I blend every moment of Your existence with my own. Even if You think I have forgotten You, I recreate You in each of my universes—and love You anew.

I am ashamed of the tears I shed each night. I press a pillow to my mouth so You cannot hear my screams. I wish to erase Your footprints from the depths of my mind, yet I cannot bar the paths of my heart to You.

My God… why do You torment me? My God… why do You make me feel so intensely?

I walk through streets that have grown alien to me. They no longer feel familiar. The scent of this body I inhabit has begun to unsettle me. My disturbed mind is caught in a constant act of flight. I find myself besieged by creatures that exhale decay yet have forgotten how to rot—an abandoned forest of suicide. I cannot conceive of life beyond my dreams.

A bomb exploded, and I took refuge behind a pillar, desperate to escape. Time flowed like water. I felt the searing heat of flames rising on either side. Unfamiliar odors seeped from my flesh—I sensed a fire. Yet I remained oblivious to the acrid smell of my melting skin. I became utterly convinced that pain endures.

The building reborn from the ashes. I came to tend the fragile hopes sprouting within its ruins. I was deliriously happy. I scarcely noticed the blood streaming from my arms. I felt vividly alive. I began to hesitate to give voice to my thoughts. I grew thoroughly accustomed to lying. I was certain this was how I would take refuge in the virtue of happiness. I greeted the faces I once knew with renewed love.

But as brief as my happiness, my dream too was fleeting. At the very moment I did not want to be disturbed by the one from whom I sought upheaval, I was interrupted. Sometimes there are only moments: the smoke swirling in my mind scorches my lungs; moments like faith; moments when my heart outstrips my mind…

I wanted to be baptized by you. I wanted to kneel before you. I wanted to believe in you.

The doors closed. Inside, there was only you and me. I could feel our breaths merging. When the ringing in my ears faded, the first thing I heard was your rising voice. Why were you so angry? Though I tried to defuse the tension before it began, I knew I’d failed. I’ve always been like this. I knew you’d never grasp the worth I placed on him. Perhaps you’ll never meet anyone like me. I tried to show off my superiority complex by remaining calm. My sense of alienation was nothing new.

Through your mounting shouts I barely caught a few words. Why was I repeating myself? I thought about responding, but saw no need. I’ll never understand why my writing always surfaces in my mind during my tensest moments. Unspoken words turn into ink. What remains unsaid fills the pages. It shouldn’t be this way. Some things must be spoken—and, once spoken, truly heard. Aren’t most problems born from the failure to understand what’s been said?

Even though I hate fighting, a part of me has always secretly enjoyed it. If I’d known, while still in my mother’s womb, that war—an indispensable force of evolution—would one day besiege our collective consciousness, would I have opened my eyes at all? A few blows to my chest brought me back. The voices rose even louder because I stayed silent. Then a single sentence slipped from my lips: I love you.