My Sadness Spoke to Me

He found me again. This time I didn’t start at his unannounced appearance. He took a seat on the left side of my heart, my Achilles’s heel, ruffling out his coat and folding back on the chair like he was the king of it. I could feel the strength I had been building over the last few days crumble into dust, could feel my last straw of happiness being sucked into the black empty orbs he called eyes. His pale skin tanned considerably as he fed on the last layers of my health, as he looked at me hunching into a miserable ball he was witness to.

“You are back” in a shaky voice I tried to disguise with a swallow of thick painful saliva.

“Missed me?” a hollow taunting voice meant to crush me further into nonexistence.

“No, but I expected you. You have been visiting more and more often and I’ve learnt to expect your intrusion.”

“Intrusion,” he scoffs.

“One second of happiness and you appear so fast to steal even that. Yes, intrusion.”

I am hoping to God these scathing tears I’m feeling behind my lids don’t fall and embarrass me. If he laughs at me it will be the end of me. He stares at me so intently, so deeply so that I understand he owns me in these moments he invades my life and rules over my mind and heart. Be it hours, days or weeks, he owns me when he is in that chair, in the corner of my heart reserved for the loves of my life and the ghosts of my past.

“You call to me, you know that,” in a whisper that roars all over my being.

I want to say no, want to outright disagree but I don’t know how in these moments when I have no voice of my own and no spine to hold my own.

“Look at you, you mope all day and cry all night mourning an existence we both know is worthless. You have come from comparing me with the grey of the clouds or the wilting of a rose to looking at every good thing and seeing me in it. You don’t think about tomorrow, but obsess over yesterday and waste today hosting me. You call me, let me take over this corner of your heart…”

He stops, his black orbs jumping from one thing to another, a sneer drawn sharply over his face, a long face punctuated by jutting cheekbones. The belongings of my heart stare back at him, smell of age and neglect hitting my nostrils. I’m suddenly ashamed as his eyes finish their journey and settle on me.

“You never dealt with it, never acknowledged it as you should have,” his eyes dart to the memories of my childhood. Just looking at them is like a pierce of an arrow to my jugular.

“You are a damn coward, you know that? You ran away from it all when you could have faced and fought it,” his eyes come nearer, a being of their own able to reach forward and see your fear, guilt and sorrows and nourish their master.
“It haunts and hunts you, fed by your fear and guilt. You heap mistakes upon mistakes, abusers upon abusers, chaos upon chaos, hurt upon hurt… And in all that, you prove again and again that you are a doormat, a doormat and a hoarder,” he stops, letting it all sink in as he stares on, victorious.

“How do you feel when you leave the beds of your lovers? Does it hurt less, is it enough? Do they rid you of me? Huh? Is it enough? Is it? Do they know it is just an escape? Do they? Answer me! Do they know?!”

I’m a heaving mess by now, tears digging a valley down my face to my hollowing chest. All of my past is dancing in front of my eyes, wanting to be seen, acknowledged. I feel like a mad person, hiding my face behind my hair, a compulsion to run away so strong my feet hurt with the struggle to stay still. I see it through a blurred curtain of tears, hear the voices of my past pass me by, feel every pain, hurt and misery of my life as they reach for my hand. I pull my hand back, move back so they don’t reach me, close my eyes and block my ears so they stop existing. In all that, he sits, all regal and right, staring at me as I struggle.
My whisper is soft when I beg him to stop and let me breath, to stop and let me be.

“I will always be here, will always visit and sit and watch. I will steal every colour in your life and every will to live you have,”

“Have you not done that already? I have no will left,” it’s a hoarse voice that finds its way out of my mouth, my words a weak cacophony that fall at his feet as if they worship him. Unbidden he feeds me a memory of the man I once loved but lost. He does this over and over again when he visits, cuts me up with images of when I was happy, then brings on images of the day I lost it all to my insecurity. It’s criminal, letting me feel the guilt over and over. Again he feeds me, this time a feel of the loneliness that grips me, wide and yawning, when I sit with family and try to be a part of them.

He cackles, like the witches in the stories of lore. All I see when I peer behind my hair is a dark empty hollow lair leading from his mouth. I look at him well enough, a man defined greatly by the downturned lips of his victims locked behind their doors in their beds at noon; their tears embraced by their pillows and already damp handkerchiefs. He snatches every moment of happiness, lets his victims second guess every second of happiness in their life, drawing them farther from anything worth bringing happiness. He is the grim reaper when it comes to their soul, and when he is done, their spirit is completely extinguished. His grey robes have well turned to blue with all he has stolen from me today, his grey face now a mask of purple. He is nothing behind his ensemble, just an abyss of whirling lost souls.

“You’re well-nourished, aren’t you? You come here, mock me for my troubles and engrave the hurt deeper. You leave your mark in every part of me and throw it back at me. You make me your puppet and laugh and clap at my struggles like you own me. Leave me”

I want to mention I’m happy. I’m happy in the moments when I dance as I cook, music my cure. I’m happy as I laugh with my friends and smile for the cameras. I’m happy as I walk down the street and witness the beauty of nature. I’m happy when I tell them I’m fine. I want to mention that I have been trying to fix it all, getting it from the recesses of my brain and shaking the hand of every bad memory and making peace. It is a slow process, but maybe I’ll find the light.

If he buys the lie maybe he will leave today and let me be. His eyes see. He however says nothing even as his face admonishes me. I sense the end of this conversation. I have bored him already, and a man like him is always busy, he has more souls to torment after all. My palms find my cheeks and I wipe away my tears, his eyes staring at me in a rare form of pity.

“Fix yourself and I will leave for good,” a parting shot and the seat is empty although I still feel him in my marrow.

I blink and I am back to this sink, by this window, my eyes lost in the wilderness beyond, my hands rubbing suds over and over on this plate, the ‘drip’ ‘drip’ of the tap water the only sound around me.