Shrines for Those Who Leave
My Therapist said that I have abandonment issues,
says that I tend to idolize the people who leave me,
She says that I build shrines for those who leave,
and tombs for those who stay.
my mind rests in a sarcophagus buried deep in the dark corners of my personal oblivion. in it lies my most intimate thoughts, the delicate yet shattered fragments of a broken soul. around it lie silver falchions, bracelets, crumpled papers, and shadows. reach in and pick up the silver, and trace its edge with caution, for it shines with beauty but can draw blood with just a bit of pressure. feel its smooth surface, and watch it dip down as it tapers into a blade. pick up the bracelets, and search for the keys to undo their locks. slip your wrists into them but beware, for they can bind you down to your past as they had done to me. pick up the papers and smooth them out. bring them up to your nose as you try to distinguish the script, to decipher the words that had been smeared with my tears as i wrote and rewrote the same goodbyes in different ways. reach out for the shadows, but feel your hand slip through their coldness to grasp the empty space that had filled me for what felt like eternity. enshrined in this tomb was my escape from the world of expectations, routines, and pressures i had surrounded myself with. i found a home in my melancholia, a familiarity that remained unparalleled by any other relationship or emotion i had ever experienced. this crypt was cloaked from everyone but one other. before the sun cast its light on my life, this other pneuma and i let the saber shed our blood, allowed the shackles to bind us to the fruitless parts of our worlds, added to the pile of crushed notebook papers, permitted the shadows to consume our beings. we wept in each other's company, spilled our tears out of misery and hopelessness. but when the light shed its beams on me, i finally felt the beauty of warmth after surrounding myself in the cold. the lid of my sarcophagus creaked open, greedy for more heat. it sucked in more and more until it opened entirely, revealing its contents to the world. for the tomb did not simply hold blades and shackles and goodbyes and hollowness: my body lay in it as well, devoid of life and dreams. my tomb was a tribute to myself, a diversion from the unbearable events that I collectively referred to as life. i rested empty after leaving a bit of me in everyone i encountered, whether i lost them or not. i thrived off of their love, seeking out relationships more than the humdrum meaningless interactions that characterize so many of my prior alliances.
when the world saw me, it recoiled in confusion. why would i of all people feel this loss of hope, when all around me, life was blooming and growing and blossoming? my friends were my fire, providing me with warmth and comfort. my parents were my forests, willingly giving me the oxygen that i cannot live without. my opportunities were like flowers, present in so many different forms, but always present in innumerable amounts. how could i possibly be so dead when everyone else was so alive? it wasn't as if i didn't have people who'd be willing to give up everything they have to see me smile, as if i couldn't paint the sky with my pigments. but lately, the only colors i had been using were the onyx shades of blacks and greys.
however, instead of leaving me, this sunshine stayed, until my skies were filled with more yellows and pinks and blues and sunsets and dusks. it stayed until the blades and the shackles rusted, until the papers became thin enough for the wind to pick them up and blow them far away, beyond my grasp and my sight, and until it drove the shadows out. it allowed the blushing petals of tulips to caress my cheeks and for rosemary to fill my nostrils with the scent of life. it allowed my eyes, which had reduced to dull stones, to shine like diamonds once more. it taught me that i am the product of the most magical witchcraft, the decorous result of the most meticulous sorcery. i am an angel that fell into and rose from the frozen flames of hell, with scarred wings and broken smiles, but with a fire in my eyes that glows brighter than the stars. i am the moon, drawing the waves closer to and farther away from me with a beautiful rhythm that can only be heard by those who listen closely. and i will treat myself with the delicacy that one treats ancient art, for i am a splintered masterpiece.
