Through Hurricanes And Sandstorms

I am walking through the damage like revisiting a site after a hurricane. So much destruction, so many broken pieces that I can no longer recognize what they used to be. The snow will soon fall, and everything will be covered in white, a blank slate for me to start over, but that doesn’t mean that what’s hidden underneath no longer exists.

My body is a map tracing the battles lost and the wars to be won. And I feel numb; the only reminder that something is boiling inside me are my tears, like steam from a pot ready to pop. Time wasted as it stands still; the world is on hold, but I am running as fast as I can to escape it all. With nowhere to go, with so much darkness within, existence is excruciating.

I am flooding. Overtaken by so many emotions, I can’t differentiate between them, or maybe it’s their unity that fools me. Missing pieces from my memory, gaps in the stories I tell so I can convince myself that what I am pretending to forget, in reality, is nonexistent.

My stomach turns; this sudden urge to empty my insides attacks me in the middle of the night, as if to warn me that it will consume me if I don’t let it out soon. I am meant to be alone, but I was not made to tolerate it. This much compassion kills every other feeling, and oh, how I wish to feel anything at all.

I ask myself every hour, “What will you do? What can you undo?” and my answer is always the same: nothing. I rise and fall like the waves reaching to the sky, dreaming of the moon. Feeling the tides push and pull through my soul. I am bent as I am trying to bend time.

And I dared to think that I had the answers to questions that are kept unknown. I speak with certainty that I am that reflection in the mirror, when in reality, I do not see who is staring back at me. I dared to believe that my heart was whole. The time I cannot account for, buried in the sandstorm within the hourglass of my mind. Always wondering if the lost years of my past are mirroring the future. Or am I trapped in the present?

I am disabled by hope, blinded by a light that only shines for those willing to see.