chinese takeaway, old friends, and blocked noses
(no one is going to come for you, you can rest now) TWs
Result out today. I know it from the way my phone vibrates. Like a bird flying full-speed into a glass window. My best friend texts, we're screwed, which is her way of saying you’re not alone. No one gets me like her. I tell her to text me when the link starts working. I end up texting her when it does. Opening the site like I'm lifting a scab. It’s wet underneath. It hurts and nothing heals.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
This has happened before. Same silence stretched too thin between two people trying not to cry into their phones. Last year I was spiralling like I'm spiralling right now. It was worse. No, this is worse. This year’s spiral has a better soundtrack, worse stakes.
We joke that nothing's been right since Class 10. Joke. Haha. Tragedy is a comedy or whatever the fuck joker said in 2019 and won an oscar for it. We didn't even know each other back then. Destiny saw our mutual academic downfalls and decided we should meet. We joke about our wasted potentials while we both know we aren't joking. She's on the same sinking boat as mine. She tells me it's nazar. Nazar. Evil eye. I count the people I've done wrong. It makes sense if they wish death on me or worse— failure.
I was on the phone with her for hours before I could gather up the courage to text my parents. Texting is better than talking. I cry more and more and she tells me all the things she wishes someone had said to her. She’s seen me cry more than anyone else. Which is, well — four times. Not much. But still.
I lock myself in the bathroom. War flashbacks. Same cold tiles. My head is down, my nose is blocked, the sounds I make are animal. The floor from beneath my feet collapsing and slipping away like dominos. I hit send on the text i seasoned. A bunch or sorrys and i trieds. Papa comes outside and knocks. I know he's scared because he knows I'm stupid. I can feel his spirit shake through the creaking door when I don't answer. Last time this happened I had walked out with a purple bruise on my arm that screamed louder than I ever could. He cried and told me to never do that again. But neither of us could name what that was. Mum calls me from the other room. The same mum who told me that all I did was fake trying last time. The same mum who carried the same bruises as mine, only hers were darker and more grave. She is gentler now. She's not catastrophic anymore. Both of us aren't. I stuff my face within my palms and their voices are muffled. My head hurts right in the middle. I don't comprehend a thing. Only that they're not angry, not quite like last time.
We decided to have Chinese for dinner. Because we’re pretending it’s just another day. The food feels like paper and stone in my mouth. It sticks to the roof, to my throat. I don’t want it. Lumpy and stingy just sitting there. I choked on the guilt. It felt like a celebration. I didn’t have anything to celebrate. I felt like I just walked out of a sinking plane on fire and was being celebrated for existing. It felt like all my life reduced to nothing and in this moment I was just the girl who existed like she should've, like it was expected from her. Survivor’s guilt.
It’s been a few days and the food doesn’t feel good anymore. It feels like that lump, growing in my throat, refusing to settle inside. I make coffee and don’t drink it. I scroll and don’t feel anything. I delete visionboards on pinterest. I feel like throwing up. I didn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t. I wasn’t crying anymore. When I heard papa get up from his bed I knew it was 4:30 and that I had spent the entire night staring outside of my window lying on my bed. 5:30 he goes out for a walk and I'm still awake. I walk over the cold tiles barefoot. I loose my bra. I am undone under the cold blanket. I feel like a slut as I arch my back. Chills moving up my spine. My head thrown back. I clutch the fabric and stuff it beneath my body. I touch the middle of my chest flattened as I lie down to feel something. Anything.
I have an ulcer inside the walls of my mouth. My teeth rub against it. I trace it with my tongue. It tastes like metal. And all my pain and suffering crashes into one in that tiny lump. It comes alive. It hurts just enough to feel alive. Just enough to be reminded I exist. I tell myself it's better because last time I had bled to feel this. God, the things I’d do just to feel alive.
I saw a friend a few days back and I could feel the hate from six arms distance. Sideyes. Cold stares. Blissful ignorance. I have been an appalling friend to every single person I ever cared for remotely. I have left people for no reason and slammed doors closed for myself, thinking that it is the best decision. I've hurt people and always thought of myself as right but when you start noticing a pattern of drifting away from everyone, you realise that there isn't everything alright with you. I'm incapable of loving or giving someone what they expect from me— what they rightfully deserve. The bigger picture shows me a visual of myself, old and obsolete, with no friends or love. When I’m older, I shall be angry at every other thing. At myself. At how much time I wasted being afraid.
The day blends into the next. Or maybe the one before. I never remember now. I watched a movie about death. Laughed once. Cried none. Finished it with my mother’s head on my lap. I watch movies halfway everyday. Halfway. Like everything else.
I’ll run away from this town barefoot if it kills my dreams. If that's all it'll take, I'll give it what it wants. Same drop in the stomach and I'll pack my things up. I'll shoulder my baggage and leave and nobody will notice if I do it in the dead of night. Concrete roads and stones won't stop me from running. And in that moment, I will be free. I won't know what to do next but I'll run away with my hair tied up.
Ps. Now listen up dirtbags, jocks, tryhards, and prom queens, this is something no senior will ever tell you — Do not give so much of your time, so much of your life to an exam. Grades won’t hold your hand when you cry at 2 AM. Merit lists won’t love you back. Scholars don’t get medals for surviving depression. Nothing has ever mattered, and nothing will ever matter, only how you feel today. Only how you let yourself breathe today. Because nothing truly amounts to your existence. And I know you feel so big at 17 and then so little at 18 and then you're in your last year as a teenager and suddenly life feels like it's fucking over. It's never over. (At least I like to tell you so. Jeff said it too.)
xx
thank you for being here after all this time, all 88 of you <3