I watched the plate fall, powerless to stop it even though in those moments before it hit the ground, I wondered if floundering, if attempt could change the outcome or if it was inevitable and that plate was destined to fall and shatter. The shards cut my feet and, yet still, I just stood there, immobile and useless as when it had begun its descent. I stood there motionless still when Sisi ran into the kitchen and dragged me away from the debris, yelling at me because how else does one aptly convey concern? She asked me what I was thinking of; where my mind went. I didn’t answer; there was no point.
I was thinking of him again.
How can one person tug at both my ends so fiercely; inspire the most vivid visions of fiery love, adoration and longing and in the same vein inspire mind-numbing anxiety, self-loathing and a healthy dose of merited, outwardly projected dislike and anger? Well, sometimes. He was aggravating.
Earlier that day, the day the plate broke, I’d gone to see him.
Is it momentary weakness still when this moment has become years and weakness is bordering on madness? I was giddy with excitement in the cab, shaking at the prospect of seeing him again, of having him look at me in the way that he did in the moments where he enjoyed my love, vastly different from the way he stared past me when he didn’t want it, which was almost always now. I’d combed my hair extra hard that morning and I’d even slicked back my edges, well, attempted to.
He’d hurt my feelings immediately upon arrival in the very special way he always did. He knew so well how to hurt my feelings. Always in a way that left me wondering if I was imagining it all, if he hadn’t meant to, if the sinking feeling in my stomach and palpitations in my chest were somehow of my own doing. If he was justified in treating me so poorly like I didn’t matter or like I was awful enough that I deserved it.
He was cutting, every word heavy laden with meaning that I dared not infer because then, of course, I was imagining it.
Sisi herded me away from the kitchen and into the tiny living room of the dingy apartment we shared. She went back into the kitchen to clear the mess and while she was gone, I sat transfixed, staring at the wall, the blank canvas for the projections my mind was about to make.
My memories of memorable events, the times when I’m happiest, are vivid. I can smell the smells and feel the textures of my experiences and sometimes, they haunt me to tears. Other times they inspire longing like pangs of hunger. Every day, I uncover a new, old memory of us buried in the abyss of my mind and it’s glorious; we were glorious. Then, I was free to love him and in those memories, he actually did love me. I could feel it. Maybe that’s why it’s so baffling, who we are now.
We’d argued on his doorstep, saying everything and anything but communicating nothing. We could never seem to perform that basic function anymore, conveying messages. Neither of us did much listening and even when I tried, it wasn’t enough. I’d left shortly after; we’d smoothed things over in the way we did, solving nothing but resolving to move past it so we could move on to more enjoyable things. I was never satisfied but you seemed to be and so I tried to be too. On my way home that day, I cried in the cab. Heaves and sobs that made my driver uncomfortable. When I got home, I slept, the kind of forlorn sleep that takes you when you’re all cried out.
When I woke up, I’d decided to eat and while I dished the food that Sisi had so generously prepared in my absence, I knocked a plate off the rack and just let it fall.
When Sisi came back, she came with an antiseptic to clean my wounds. I cried while she worked, mostly because I loved to cry about my misfortune. I cry when I am overwhelmed, when I’m miserable, when the sadness sits on my chest, unwavering. Sisi was used to it and so she just let me cry, wiping my cuts and cooing comfortingly like she was my mother.
This time, I was crying because it was all I knew how to do. Crying for the wounds on my feet and the listlessness I felt and, of course, crying about him because what else was there to do?
I wondered if it was time to actually put the effort it would take into letting him go. Seriously this time, in the one way that truly matters. Maybe I had to tuck my hands behind my back and just watch how things would unfold. Maybe the outcome is inevitable and all this time that I’ve spent desperately clutching at straws has been time wasted.
I was done crying and Sisi was done tending my wounds. She looked me square in the eye and asked me what the matter was, what was wrong with me. I told her I was fine now; all that was left was for my wounds to heal.
wonderful writing as usual.
Wallahi I love your writing