my day
This is how I live. My eyes open and I see the light dancing on the ceiling. I don’t know how they got through the thick purple and red curtains. They somehow slipped through the cracks. I breathe in and breathe out. I have just that first moment, that first sacred moment. Then reality comes surging in like a flood, slamming its great mass into my consciousness, then heavy and rough into my soul. It’s like the sorrow gets a notification on its phone that I have awaken, and promptly races to me to resume its position in my soul. Feelings have to eat, too. But before that, I have this moment. This moment in which I lay limply without weight, unaware of the race of Sorrow, Temptations, and Lies for my soul, but only of my being here, a clean slate. That moment when I’m not awkward, self-conscious, sad, fidgeting. That moment before I am too heavy


to handle.
In that moment, I am air, I am ocean, I am wind, and I am powerful without form, that first moment of consciousness. This moment when I am a clean slate, before DREAD clasps my heart in its gruff hands, makes it hard to breathe. This moment between the sheets and the shadows. Between yesterday and today. That moment reminds me that this pain is not mine. I have my own soul. It reminds me that I’m still alive. I get up and start the day, doing my best to tippy-toe through it. Trying to dodge your bad side, to avoid your judging glances. Holding my breath. I write in between my sloppy notes “I never see the descent, only the crash.” Is it right that I feel ashamed when our eyes meet? I wonder if I look solid to others, sitting in class, still, when the world is spinning and my hands open and close and open and close, but I cannot grasp anything to slow me down. When I get home, I pretend that you can see me through my mirrors, there are so many. I pretend you see my tears and almost cry with me out of sympathy. I pretend that you are an angel looking down on me from the ceiling, finding me so frail yet so beautiful. Wishing me well. Wishing me to realize how precious I am, at least to you. And that you care very much about the rain I make with my eyes. Your love for me so strong, you just want to break through the glass and free me from the empty reflections. I gently open the curtains; the sun is setting. I close my eyes and grab this moment. I become the crazy colors behind light and eyelids. For a moment, I am in the sunset, for a moment, I am golden, I am gold. I lose my senses and feel a striking resemblance to that moment, only this time I am weightless in the light instead of the dark. After brushing my teeth and slipping into my black tank top and green silk pants, I lay down onto my bed. I am now weaponless (and they know this). I’ve entered the ring. Ding, Ding! I wrestle with the memories and cutting moments. They are so strong as I knee and kick and bite. My life flashes before my eyes and I wonder if I am dying. Then the world finally stops spinning, and the world freezes over. Then there is this different moment. A moment of finally knowing what is to come. As I release the last thread of consciousness, I know I will surface from the dark after tumbling dreams, and reach unknowingness in the dawn. Only two moments in an ocean of thousands of black ones, clashing together—and I hope.