It takes one year for a person's heart to break completely
Two, for it to grieve
Three, for it to accept
Four, for it to laugh
Five, for it to start believing --
Once again.
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"Was that a knock?"
I rubbed my still tired-eyes, grumbling for getting up too early. I always woke up in the dead of the night for no particular reasons and spend the whole time just staring at my faded dark gray ceiling till the first ray of lights pass through my half-opened window. It's been like this for the sixth or seventh night in a row. Hell if I can remember how long it's been.
But still,
The memories of what happened few weeks ago are still fresh.
Like a deep cut,
that is a constant reminder that it still hurts
even if the wounds are healed
the scars still remains.
I wiped the tears beading from the corner of my eyes still staring blankly at my ceiling. My tiredness should be an enough reason for me to be sleeping, should be. But, here I am, unable to sleep for no one's fault but my own in an apartment surrounded by exhausted people.
Maybe that's why I'm up now, thinking heavily, covered in thin blankets that barely protected me from the cold morning air in a desperate hope that I can go back to the past. No such luck and now a knock at the door, or so I think.
"I'm tired, that's all. No one's at the door this early in the morning."
I listened for any movements, nothing.
The hardwood floors and the quiet neighborhood in this one-horse town made it affordable and nice for me to live in. But you can hear everything due to the thin walls surrounding me, from the sparse basement to the upper floor with spare rooms.
So this is what it feels like to live alone, independently. The complete and utter exhaustion of adulthood and all the perks that comes with it. The kind of exhaustion that makes you regret every time you've ever complained about feeling tired. The kind of exhaustion that makes you shut those who would dare say living alone is much better. The kind of exhaustion that maybe, just maybe, short circuits the part of your brain that actually tells it to sleep, along with the ability to tell what is and isn't a knock.
"Why am I still awake? Should not I be sleeping on my bed? Why aren't I in the bedroom instead here in the living room still laying down on the sofa? The sofa isn't even that comfortable, then why?"
"So you would not be alone," the voices in my mind answered like a whisper in the wind. Soft, gentle but spoke the harsh truth. "Alone?" That is a very common word but a new experience for me. An experience I haven't still digested in my mind, an experience which is too hard to be a reality.
From the sofa in the living room, I gaze at the front door directly from the side of the room. There's an ornate glass oval in the center that lets in light from the silent hallway outside, I could open it now and leave. It would be better this way, for me at least. They say it can take time for a person to accept the truth and mend their broken heart, mind and soul, especially after a traumatic childhood like mine, barely enough energy to take care of myself now, alone. Still with no one, that gave me no choice but to find anything to keep myself living, work hard to put some food on my table, with no time for the pause and play switch just like in the movies.
I'm not asking for a pity party, because no one wanted this to happen. No one planned for this to happen. I didn't wish this would happen. But still, it happened. I'm so tired I can't sleep. It's a cliché but it is damn true. I'm not the same person I was back then.
I focus on the front door and fantasize about leaving through it. How cool the cold morning air would feel in my skin. The things I would leave behind, the memories of burden would be buried here. No one would care anyway. But this isn't what I signed for, no sir. Hell if I know what to do with my life anymore. Hold out on to the hope that I will learn to live?
"Wait, was that a knock again?"
I slowly got up from my sofa, quietly, feeling the cold hard wood floor on my bare foot as I walked to the front door. Even in the slight darkness of the dimly lit room I catch my reflection approaching the oval glass. No shirt just boxer shorts and a melancholy in a pair of eyes I shouldn't recognize but do. I want to yank that reflection out of its home in the glass pattern and strangle it, screaming, "Grow up, enough of this. You are an adult now, so take care of yourself. There is no one for you to count on, no one for you to trust on, just you, alone. Too bad if you don't like it because even if you do no one wants to hear your problems"
At least I can pretend to be a man and check the door. Hell, that's half of the teenager world right there, constantly acting like grown adults. It's no wonder, I feel so deprived from this role I'm playing right now. There's no scoreboard for being an adult, no competition, no gauge of maturity. Just paper bills and works and taxes and insomnia and sad to say, there is no credit for any of it. Not like in my high school days, back when it was all parties, and alcohol, and late nights and more alcohol. Easy to live life without a worrying a thing.
But now? Reduced to staring dumbly at the door early in the morning and stumbling through a dark living room in search of noises that may or may not be in your head? No thank you.
That's when I heard something, breaking me from my trance, and this time I'm positive it's a knock. I slowly took a small glance through the peephole and the face of someone I least expect to see pop out, the landlord. What a great time to pay my bills. Sarcasm dripping from that sentence.
Well let's just deal with it.