Evening Primrose

In the darkness
In the cold
A voice beckons
A hand takes hold.

All the sorrows
All the pain
In the corner
Let it rain.

Take a deep breath 
Let it go
Push your fears
Let it flow.

Open your eyes
Watch the light
Slowly fading 
Day into night.

Feel the cold 
Let it in
Do not fight
Let it win.

Feel the wind
Caress your face
As you fall
Fall in grace.

Let the darkness
Set you free
Take my hand, dear
Come to me.

34 Degrees Celsius

I wrote another horror short story for Reddit NoSleep. I don’t know why, but I really enjoyed writing sad horror genre. I feel like I could release some of the darkness inside me.

Disclaimer: All names and events in this story are fictional and not based on real persons or events. This story also includes child abuse, domestic violence and medical misdiagnosis. Trigger warning.

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My normal body temperature is 34 degrees Celsius. Medically, it’s considered hypothermia and I probably should be dead. My parents and even the doctors were confused why I am still alive, breathing, and functioning normally.

Honestly, I wasn’t always like this.

*********

My childhood was relatively normal. I was a timid child, preferring the company of dolls instead of playing outside with my older brother and sister.

My siblings, Oliver and Leann, were very rambunctious children. Our parents were used to going to the children’s clinic occasionally, after their horseplay. Unlike me, the two of them liked their scars. It was like a trophy or something in their minds.

But we loved each other, and they tried to include me as much as possible in their games. When they played dragon (Oliver) and knight (Leann), I was the trapped princess at the castle tower (sofa). I was the queen, the humble peasant or even just a passerby with no real roles in the game. But I was happy. I was happy to be included and still avoided stitches and bruises.

Until the morning of my 6^th birthday. I woke up with a terrible pain in my leg. I couldn’t stand from the bed and Leann had to run to our parents’ room for help. When mom pulled down my covers, my right ankle was red and swollen. They took me to the emergency room, thinking I had an extreme allergic reaction to something. But the diagnosis was weirder than they thought.

My ankle was broken. And I had bruises on both my legs as if I had fallen down the stairs.

The doctors asked my parents if I did fall, but our house was a 1-storey bungalow type. There were no stairs or any high places I could have fallen from. And the injury was too recent that it could have only been possible a few hours before we went to ER.

My parents, my siblings and even I was confused how it was possible.

In the end, the doctors concluded that I might have fallen off my bed. They put a cast on me, and I got to stay home for the next couple of weeks.

It was my first time to get a severe injury, and I did not like the feeling at all. I avoided joining my siblings’ game after that, too afraid that I might get accidentally hit.

Over the next few weeks, I stayed in my room with my dolls. One afternoon, as I was playing alone, I had a sudden pain in my right stomach. It was like a truck had hit me, and I couldn’t breathe.

Luckily, Oliver ran past our room on his way to get his baseball gear. He saw me lying on the carpet with my mouth wide open, trying to get as much air as possible. He called mom who was in the garden, and they rushed me to the hospital.

I had a large bruise on my right stomach, and the x-ray showed the bone on my lower rib cage was fractured.

I told the doctors I was alone when it happened – no one in my family had ever hit me. I don’t think they believed it.

Child protective services were called to investigate if there was any child abuse at home. Us kids stayed with our aunt while I healed, and our parents dealt with the investigation.

I think it was Leann who planted the first seed of idea in my mind, “You know, Bea, I got hit by a ball on my stomach when you got that pain. Maybe you’re feeling the injuries I get. Kind of like a twin thing – but with sisters. I’m really sorry.”

In our childish minds, it made sense. We were too bonded, and I was too sensitive.

The CPS investigation found no evidence of abuse in our home. My parents were good people who loved their children unconditionally. The three of us finally got to go home, and Leann promised to be more careful if I was indeed channeling her pain in some way.

I didn’t get any more major injuries after that. But we noticed that I had a lot of random bruises on my body. Sometimes I even wake up with marks on my body like a cigarette burn. Those hurt a lot.

Over the next couple of years, my parents sent me to doctors and specialists – trying to figure out if I had some sort of disease causing all those injuries. All my tests were negative. I was in good physical health, but I continued to get marks and bruises on my body.

It eventually stopped. For a while.

And then, when I was 10, it happened again. The five of us were at the park, flying kites or watching the ducks on the pond. I felt the air rush out my body, and my throat closed in. I felt like I was being strangled by an invisible force. The last I saw was my parents frantically calling for help before I passed out.

My memories of that time are kind of blurry now. But I remember seeing a kid in my dream. He was around my age, and he kind of looked like me except that he was very skinny. He was limping, and he had bruises all over his face. He looked at me with the saddest brown eyes – eyes that were eerily similar to mine.

When I woke up, I was again at the hospital. It had become like a second home to me. My face and neck were swollen, and my throat was bone dry. I heard the doctors talking to my parents, saying words that didn’t make sense to me.

“…strangulation…”

“…trauma on her face and neck…”

“…bruises similar to a thick rope around her neck and wrists…”

I just had an injury similar to a punching bag and we had no idea why. Once again, CPS was called, but there were a lot of witnesses at the park that day. They all said that I randomly started choking, with no external force whatsoever. The bruises also started appearing while I was unconscious, and the paramedics were trying to save me.

I felt very afraid. There was an unseen force trying to hurt me, or even kill me. My parents sent me to more doctors. They thought I might have epilepsy or mental disorder, and that I might have been subconsciously hurting myself. I was home-schooled, and my parents took turns watching me sleep at night.

When I turned 13, my parents decided to tell me the truth about myself. They thought that it might help understand all the things that were happening to me.

They sat the three of us down and told me, “Bea, we love you. Your brother and sister love you. And we always will, even if we don’t share the same blood.”

I was adopted. My biological mother and I were found living on the streets when I was just a few months old. She was bruised, battered, half-crazed and rambling about leaving my other half behind. The good Samaritans took us to an asylum, where she passed away shortly and I was given to an orphanage.

During a church charity event, my parents went to the orphanage to give out toys and stuff. My father said I grabbed his hand and he decided he would never let me go. They adopted me on the spot.

After that revelation, I realized I might actually have a mental illness of some kind. My biological mother obviously had it, and I had no idea about my biological father.

Since then, I stayed indoors a lot. Whenever I wake up to a new bruise on my body, I just thought that I might have done it to myself while I was asleep. I didn’t tell my parents anymore injuries unless I had to go to the hospital. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and my psychologist thought that I was subconsciously hurting myself during my sleep.

Still, I didn’t tell anyone about the boy I kept seeing in my dream. As I grew up, he also grew in my mind. We began to look more like each other, but his injuries worsened. I felt a weird connection to that boy in my dream, and I felt sad whenever I woke up.

The last major injury I had was when I was 16. I woke up in the middle of the night choking in my own blood. I could feel my lungs collapsing inside me. With the little air I had, I screamed for Leann, and she woke up and immediately called 911 as she raced to get our parents.

At the ER, I felt pain like I never felt before. I knew I was dying. The cold started at my fingertips, spreading like wildfire all over my body. It was cold and hot at the same time. I couldn’t breathe, and my vision was tunneling. When the pain reached its limit, I passed out.

I dreamed of the boy again, but he was brutally beaten. He was lying on the floor. And he kept whispering, “Ryan… Rachel.. Ryan..”

I woke up with fractured and broken rib cages, collapsed left lung, broken collar bone, swollen larynx, and multiple bruises on my arms and legs. I had multiple surgeries, and steel pins attached inside me. I had to be on 24/7 observation and they constantly drain water collecting in my lungs.

It was the most agonizing year of my life. Aside from the physical therapy I had to do, I was also subjected to multiple sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists. I was depressed and confused. My parents believed I did all those injuries to myself, and they were as depressed as me.

Even after my bones and wounds healed, I had to stay at the hospital for constant observation. My vitals were checked every 5 minutes because my heart rate was too slow, my oxygen level was also below normal, and my temperature remained at 34 degrees Celsius. In all medical sense, I should be dead. But I’m not.

After a year of daily check-up, the doctors finally gave up in finding the reason for my unusual temperature. I was allowed to go home to continue healing. My parents, my siblings and I continued seeing a family therapist to deal with the trauma.

During one of the private sessions, I mentioned Leann’s comment from so many years ago. How I was too sensitive to the pain of my siblings. And the therapist woke me up with this: “Probably. And even though they’re not your blood relative, your bond is still too strong.”

Yes, Leann and Oliver may be my siblings, but I was adopted. I shouldn’t have that kind of intimate connection to them. As Leann had said, it was a twin thing.

When I turned 18, I told my parents that I would go and find my biological family. I wanted to understand where I came from, and why those things happened to me. They were worried, of course, so Oliver decided to accompany me.

We went to the orphanage where I got to know my mother’s name: Rosalie Evans, and the asylum where she passed away. With a little help from my dad (who was a lawyer), I got Rosalie’s medical records from the asylum. She was indeed a little crazy in the end, but the doctors believed it was the result of years of physical and mental abuse. Her body had a lot of bruises and scars from old beatings.

I dug a little deeper into her life. She was involved in a lot of domestic abuse reports. It seemed her husband beat her a lot and their neighbors would repeatedly report him. But at the station, Rosalie would always deny the abuse and gave excuses about her injuries. She was blindly in love with that bastard, and she wouldn’t leave him. Until the day her children were born.

As I journeyed on to find my past, I was shocked by another revelation: I was a twin. I found my birth records using Rosalie’s name and found out my real name was Rachel Evans, and I had a twin brother, Ryan.

At that moment, everything clicked in my mind: the boy in my dreams was my twin. The man I refuse to acknowledge as my father was an abusive and disgusting excuse for a human being. My mother was able to run away with me but couldn’t bring my brother along. Ryan was left to be raised by that awful man, and he suffered all his life for it.

I tried to find Ryan, I told Oliver that I wanted to save him, but I knew in my heart I was too late. And I was. We never found where Ryan was buried, probably somewhere in a pauper’s grave. They moved a lot when he was still alive, so it was difficult to trace his life. But we found his medical records. Like our mother, he had many healed fractures and scars from years of abuse. At 16, he died of internal bleeding from a collapsed lung after an altercation with his drunk father who treated him like a punching bag all throughout his short life.

Everything that happened to me was because of Ryan. Leann was right, it was a twin thing. Every abuse and pain my brother felt, I felt. And when he died, I think a little part of me died, too.

I’m just glad that when Ryan left this world, he took the bastard with him to the grave. I found his name too, but I don’t feel like glorifying his memory in this post. He doesn’t deserve that. All I will say is that he was found at a roadside, crazed and mumbling something about his dead kid haunting his dreams. They took him to the same asylum where my mother died, and he was found one morning hanging from the window.

Years have passed since then; I have come to accept my weird past, and my even weirder present. I was lucky to find a man who was as warm as I am cold, and we are expecting twins in the summer. I think if I get boys, I’ll name one of them Ryan – for the boy of my dreams and the brother I never got to know.

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Tinder Nightmares

I love reading horror stories on Reddit and Creepypasta. Recently, I decided to try my hands on writing my own. This is one of the few I’ve posted on Reddit r/nosleep.

**********

It happened 3 and half years ago. I was newly transferred from our Manila office to the firm’s headquarters in Nagoya, Japan. It was an exciting move for me – for the first time in my 30 years of life, I would be living by myself. And the idea of becoming part of the main design team was motivating

I had very low Japanese skills, so I didn’t make new friends right away. But it was a good timing for me to learn how to be independent. The solitude was actually freeing and refreshing.

The first friend I made was Rica, who was working at the accounts department of our firm. She was married to a Japanese guy and they had one baby boy.

It was Rica who suggested I use Tinder in the first place. It was where she and her husband met, and she thought I could also find my true love there.

I had just gotten out of a long-term toxic relationship at that time, so I wasn’t interested in dating. I guess you could say I had PTSD – it was a traumatic time of my life.

But Rica was as stubborn as I was, maybe even more so. Eventually, we made a Tinder profile for me, and she even guided me on how to filter out the creepers based on their photos and bios.

I admit, it was kind of fun. And even though I swiped left a lot more that I swiped right, I still had a decent number of matches. It was also easier to flirt on chat. I had always been more comfortable writing down my words than actually saying them.

So, when one of the guys (let’s just keep his nationality private – he’s not Japanese) invited me for an actual date, I was both excited and freaked out. Of course, I’ve read about those internet stories about blind dates gone awry, and I was prepared for that. I asked him to meet at Sakae Station when it was usually crowded. I thought that if he turned out to be a creep in real life, I could just scream and run.

But all my fears were unfounded when we finally met. His name was Lucas and he was everything his bio said he was: athletic-looking but still had that hint of nerdiness. He was a scientist of some sort – studying sleep patterns and dreams in relation to mental health. Honestly, his line of work was a little confusing to me at that time.

We had a lovely time. He was very fluent in Japanese after living here for almost 10 years. We had a laugh at the waitress’ confused look when she tried to ask me (very Asian face) our orders and he (very foreign) answered for us. And it seemed we had a lot of shared interests in books, films, and places we wanted to visit.

It was the best first date I could have ever asked for. We parted ways at the station as I declined his offer to drive me home. When I got home, he sent me a message that, at that time, I thought was very sweet, “Had a great time with you. I hope you’ll dream of me tonight as I will surely dream of you. Good night.”

Well, you guessed that right, I had a vivid dream about him that night. I wouldn’t go too much into details, but I remember it was like the extension of our date. We were sitting on my couch and talking about the things we didn’t have time to share before. He asked about my favorite flowers, and I told him “lilies… the blue-violet kind of lilies.” He smiled in my dream and that was the last I remember of it.

Lucas and I continued to chat and talk over the next few days. He was sweet, kind and the complete opposite of my ex. I felt safe and comfortable whenever I talked to him. His work kept him busy even during weekends that we couldn’t go out again. Still, his daily “good morning” and “good night” never failed to make me smile

After a while, I noticed that he would always end his messages with a little lily emoji. I asked him about it, and he said, “It just reminds me of you.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt a little nudge that something was off. I brushed it aside as simply a part of the walls I built after my last relationship. I was wary of getting deep into another relationship that might end up with me brutally battered mentally.

So, I kept it casual with Lucas. We talked when we can talk, and most of the time, we were chatting on Line. We met a few more times, for dinner or sometimes a movie. His busy schedule sometimes kept him stuck at work late at nights. Even so, I felt like I could take our relationship on the next level. On our conversations, he seemed like the perfect man for me. Even in my dreams, Lucas was a very prominent character almost every night. I really thought I could lower my guard for him, and then I met Alex.

Alex was also a foreigner on Japanese soil. We met in the Japanese class I took weekly. He was working in a factory, but he wanted to work in an office, so he was taking Japanese language lessons.

Alex was older than me, but he had a very youthful energy. I felt a different kind of calm when I’m with him. With him, I didn’t have to think about breaking down my walls – they simply fade away.

When I told Lucas that I won’t be seeing him anymore, I thought he would be mad. I was wrong. He simply said, “I understand. I’m happy that I met you. And I will continue to dream of you.”

The first night Alex stayed the night, I had another vivid dream about Lucas. It was weird, it felt real. He was talking to me and persuading me to think about our relationship again. He was talking about Alex too, “He will never understand you like I do. He doesn’t even know that you love lilies. He gives you roses, but you don’t like roses because of their thorns. He will never deserve you.”

It was an exhausting dream. I couldn’t argue back, it was only Lucas and his endless tirade of how Alex wasn’t the man for me. His voice was getting louder and louder until it was screaming in my head. It was unlike the Lucas I knew in real life. I woke up sweating and panting like I’ve just ran a marathon. Alex was awake beside me, his face full of concern. He said I was thrashing and crying, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t wake me up.

I didn’t want him to worry even more, so I told him I just had a nightmare. We went back to a blissfully dreamless sleep.

The next morning, we had a surprise when we went out to go to work – there was a bunch of lilies outside my front door. A dozen or so blue-violet lilies carefully laid in a box and left at my door mat.

There was no card or anything, but I knew. I knew it was from Lucas. How or why? I had no idea. I sent him a message about it, but he didn’t reply. And when I tried to call him, the number was already disconnected.

The next few days, I would constantly find a lily anywhere I go. Even at the ladies’ room at work. At night, I would dream about Lucas – but it was a totally different kind of Lucas.

He would scream at me. He would tell me that Alex was just another guy who would break my heart. He would show me memories of my ex, but with Alex’s face replacing my ex’s face. And when I was a ragged crying mess in my dreams, he would hold me and comfort me. He still kept trying to persuade me to break up with Alex and come back to him.

I would wake up from these nightmares totally exhausted. I even had to take a few days off from work because I couldn’t function from sleep-depravity. I was afraid to sleep. The nightmares were like the sleep paralysis I had when I was a kid, but 10x worse. I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t talk, and all I could do was cry trying to make Lucas stop.

Alex tried his hardest to comfort me. He stayed with me whenever he could, and even tried to take vacation time from work so he could be with me.

But even awake, I could feel Lucas’s presence. Before, the lilies would be somewhere public. I would find them at my desk at work, or outside my apartment door. After a while, they started appearing on my kitchen counter, my bath, and my closet. One time, I woke up from one of my Lucas nightmares to see a single lily at my bedside table.

I was exhausted beyond belief. I didn’t want to sleep, but I couldn’t stay awake. I was irritable and angry and I drove everyone I care about away. But Alex couldn’t be moved. He wanted to stay because he loved me, and I loved him too.

He suggested that I talk to a therapist, and that maybe the dreams were just manifestations of the trauma I had suffered from my ex-boyfriend. I agreed to humor him, but I knew it was not PTSD. I knew it was the real Lucas I was seeing in my dreams. And I also knew it was him who was leaving the lilies.

We found an English-speaking psychologist after days of research. I talked to her about my past relationship, and about Lucas. I told her everything except the fact that I knew they weren’t nightmares. I knew Lucas was somehow able to tap into my dreams to torment and torture me after I ended things with him.

Talking to the psychologist did help a little. She gave me some tips and exercises to try to calm myself whenever I get these nightmares.

After months of nightmare-filled nights, I finally knew what I had to do. When I went to bed that night, I immediately saw Lucas in my dream. I still couldn’t answer back, but after many nights of these, I could convince my subconscious mind that I was dreaming. I didn’t cry, instead I smiled, and I nodded in agreement with everything Lucas said.

I think it was that smile that took him aback. Suddenly I could feel air rushing into my lungs, and I could speak.

“Do you see now that I’m the right man for you?” he asked.

I nodded, “Yes. But I need proof that this is real. That what we have is real.”

Out of thin air, Lucas pulled a single blue-violet lily and handed it to me. “This is proof. I know who you are inside and out. I know everything in your mind. That Alex will never be the man I am for you. He doesn’t know you. He will never love you as much as I do.”

I held the flower in my hand, admiring the beauty of its petals. I felt sad that I would have to do the next step.

“You’re right, Lucas. Alex will never be the man that you are.” I smiled and held his gaze. “Because he is so much MORE than you.”

And then, I broke the flower in my hand. I crushed its leaves and petals and tore it into a thousand pieces. As I did, Lucas crumpled at my feet, screaming and begging. I continued to step on the broken flower until Lucas’s voice faded and my mind went blank.

In the morning, I woke up feeling rested and happy for the first time in so many months. In my hand was a single lily petal, crumpled and wilted.

Alex and I had a normal relationship, and we really enjoyed just staying in at nights watching movies until we fall asleep. I didn’t have any more nightmares, and I stopped seeing the psychologist. My dreams were filled with hopeful possibilities of my life with him.

A few days after that night, Alex and I saw the news on the internet. A very promising young scientist in the field of sleep analysis was found dead in his laboratory. The EMTs who found him were confounded about the cause of death: he was lying down on the laboratory bed, but every bone in his body was broken as if he had been trampled on. On his chest, they also found crashed and wilted pieces of a blue-violet lily.

**********

One Day

One day,

Everything between you two will change

The things you’ve gotten used to

Will be those you’ll miss the most

Mornings and nights will pass

Without a word from her lips

Soon you’ll forget the sound of her voice

All the quirks and nuisances

That annoyed you to no end

Will just be memories you’ll look back to.

One day,

You’ll sleep quietly at night

Without that long conversations

You used to have with her

And you will wake up

In the silence, even in her presence

She will no longer look at you

Like the sun rises in your eyes

And you’ll wish you’ve looked at her

More times than you could count.

One day,

Everything you’ve believed in

About love and friendship

Will slowly disappear over time

And the person you once hold dearest

Will just be another stranger

A face among the many faces

And the things that made you happy

Will just be pieces of photographs

You’ll keep in a box full of memories.

One day,

She’ll grow tired and move on

You’ll be left with nothing to hold

And you will look back to this day

Wishing you’ve done things differently

Hoping you could go back in time

And be someone better

For her and for yourself

So, don’t take her for granted

Don’t brush her aside

Don’t let these precious moments pass by

Don’t let that “one day” happen today.

Notebook

So, I was looking at some of my old tumblr posts and I came across this short story I have written many years ago. It is a short story based on a poem we read in high school.

We were tasked to write our interpretation of the poem. Unfortunately, I can’t find the original poem anymore. But it was a short piece about a man mourning for his lost love.

Below is how I expanded the poem into a short story from the man’s perspective. I hope you enjoy it.

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In my hand, I held a small blue notebook. It was old and almost full. In it were lists and doodles written in her neat handwriting. Some pages were torn, others are stained but all were preserved in its hardbound cover. There are pages filled with seemingly unrelated things: morning, blue, moonstones, etc. Others were like breakfast list: milk, eggs, bread (lightly toasted). There were crossed-out words, highlighted and emphasized. Some were written in different colors, and sometimes in pencil (when she was in a hurry and could not find a pen). In one page, she wrote in bold blank ink, “silver cuff links”. Next to it was a sketch of the cuff links she gave me on my birthday.

In bright red she had written, “no strawberries!!” She loved strawberries but learned to live without them for fear of my allergic reaction. A few pages after, she encircled a single phrase, “blue dress” – the exact dress she wore on the night she said yes. 

Other pages were filled with more words, phrases and more drawings. She had written short poems, long poems and something that might be the beginning of a novella. One page was filled with her name with the surname (my surname) underlined many times. There were things to do: “arrange flowers, sign invitations, find the perfect gown…”. And there were people to call: “mom’s 2nd cousin, my uncle, his uncle…”. 

The next few pages were filled with her everyday routine. The things she did and places she went to; meticulously written.

She documented almost every moment of her day. She wrote my favorite things and things I’d rather avoid. She stayed at home but her days never seemed dull. A few pages after, there were two lists: one for boys’ names and another for girls’. They were written in green ink but crossed out with a black marker.

Then there was a list of doctors’ names all beginning with “Dr.”. Each name written less neatly than the last. As if her dejection was flowing from her heart to her hand. I skipped a few pages – filled with lists of mundane tasks. In another page, she wrote places she wanted to go to, “Paris, London, Ireland, Asia..”. She made dreams to replace the old ones.

I wish I could say that the new ones came true, but I cannot lie. And in the next pages were new names for doctors. People that we never got to meet. People that could have helped if she did not refuse.

After a while, new things were written in my hand (when she couldn’t hold a pen any longer). Medicine names I could not understand, therapies she would not do, things we argued about. After wasting a couple of pages, we have reached a decision and new lists were made, “plot, flowers, eulogy, blue dress”. Still the same dress as before. The last few pages were blank. Each white space amplifying my emptiness.

I closed the notebook with shaking hands.

At the back of the notebook, on the cover itself, she had written: “life is a story. It is not written in sentences or paragraphs, but with words and phrases strung along with our hearts and soul. Mine is a story written with love.” – the very words we wrote on her tombstone.

***************************************************************

You

You came into my life

At the best possible moment

When I am finally at peace

And starting to rediscover

Who I am inside and out

You are there as a friend

And you make me feel safe

To explore all the things

I was afraid of before

You share your crazy stories

And we laugh everyday

I can never seem to stop smiling

Whenever you are there

You are always ready to listen

To my rambling midnight thoughts

Your shoulder is a place

I can always depend upon

To find comfort and sunshine

Despite the many thunderstorms

You are the person

I least expected to find

Someone with heart overflowing

With patience and kindness

You know me better

Than I could ever know myself

And you help me realize

That I can bring out the best in me, too

You are special to me

A friend, a kindred spirit

Someone I will always remember

Your name forever written in my heart

And I am thankful every day

That I met you.

Storm

I like the rainy days – it is the perfect weather to curl up, drink coffee and enjoy a good book. But once in a while, being alone on a rainy weather can become lonesome. And unwanted feelings and memories tend to resurface. And during the typhoon, I had the worst luck to be reminded of one hurtful conversation that I cannot completely erase from my mind. So, I did what I always do. I opened my notebook and wrote down this poem.

There’s something about the storm

That seems to break open the dam

Within the fortress of my mind

Bringing forth forgotten memories

And the wind sings a mournful song

Full of melancholy and sorrow

As the thunder clouds swells upon the horizon

So does the emotions buried deep

Rolling out in waves and waves

Until my eyes can hold back no longer

The tears as powerful as rain

Gushing out and flooding my world

As I recall every painful moment

I’ve tried to discard from my memory

There’s something about the gloomy weather

That brings out the worst of myself

And I stare at the winds raging outside

As I struggle with the brewing storm within

My heart that is tired of holding back everything

And my tears continue to flow

Sobs as loud as thunder, screaming out of me

Letting out all the frustrations and doubts

Walled up inside, hidden behind my fragile peace

So, I rage along the rain and winds

And when the storm breaks, the sun will shine

The calmness of the world will seep into me

The darkness, once again, contained inside

And I will smile.

Reasons Why I Write Long Poems

Because there are a thousand words

Tumbling inside my mind

Keeping me up at all times of the night

Jumbled thoughts that don’t make sense

Unless I write them down one by one

On any piece of paper I can find.

Because it’s the only way that I can paint

All the colors of emotions that I feel

Into a rainbow that can bridge the gap

From my heart to my brain and out to the world

Layer by layer like oil onto a canvass

To create a picture of the world inside my soul.

Because it is how I try to connect

With the world around me

When I cannot speak out of fear or shame

My poems can tell the story of who I am

And though my father always says,

“I am not the reflection of my work”

Each piece I’ve written is a part of my soul

That I offer up for the entire world to see.

Because it offers a moment, a time

When my mother can listen to my feelings

And she will smile and tell me

What a great job I did in writing down

All the pain and insecurities of someone else

Never acknowledging that it could be me

That a storm is always brewing up within

The heart of her blessed child.

Because the fears I’ve always hidden

Are bubbling just beneath the surface

Of my calm face, and mild demeanor

And through these words, I can release

The worries slowly and steadily

Before it drives me crazy and exposes to the world

How truly chaotic and insane inside me.

Because I longed for anyone to listen

To tell me that it’s ok

To be broken, imperfect and afraid

And that I am just human,

Flawed but still important

It is a call for someone who cares

And who won’t try to rescue or fix me

But will always be there to be a friend.

Because each lengthy rhythm

Is like the music and lyrics

A lullaby that sings me to sleep

Overshadowing the doubts

Until the pain and fear subsides

And the words will once again reappear

Dancing and waiting to be written

Into another very long poem.

When Anxiety Attacks

“Do not worry”

they tell me not to overthink

about the things not yet happening

nor the things that are already done

yet how can I stop the gears

turning and turning in my head

finding ways it could have been different

analyzing each moment bit by bit.

“Do not worry”

I try not to let my panic show

so I practice the words inside my head

before I say them out loud

always afraid to let my jumbled thoughts

run loose into the world

and watch with horror as

each friendly face turns to scorn

as they realize that I am just a mask

a puppet playing a role

my strings are made of

the expectations of people

pulling and twisting every which way.

“Do not worry”

but how can I not?

when I feel like people’s eyes

are looking down on me

judging my every move

so I keep my walls up

and cover them with thorns

not letting anybody see inside my soul

a room full of broken things:

my fears, worries, and insecurities

a scattered mess I try to make sense of

every night as I lay awake

until the morning sun rises

and new worries come alive

so I panic, I overthink and I wring my hands

and it goes on and on

every day of my anxious life

but I am OK, I swear I’m fine

so, don’t you worry…

A Day in My Life

***possible trigger warning***

Morning…

I wake up

And feel as if I never slept

My eyes stare up the ceiling

Willing it to open up

To see the clouds and the sky

To feel the warm kiss of the sun

I take deep breaths

Fighting the urge to close my eyes again

Slow deliberate breaths

Trying to have the courage to face the day

My eyes move on to the wall

Tracing the invisible shadows

Of the monster from the night before

The silence of the morning rings in my ears

The fears quite at bay

The anxiety slowly lifting

“I can do this…”

I whisper, a soft prayer

To whichever god is listening

“I can do this!”

I say once more

And pushed my already tired body

And exhausted mind to move

I sit and stare at my room

Feeling stupid for my fears

Knowing that monsters are not real

And the voices are just figments of my imagination

It’s all in my head.

Afternoon…

I feel so tired

Going through the same motions

Playing nice with the people

Who probably don’t care about me

Smiling even though all I want is to cry

It’s exhausting

Trying to act so together

Faking confidence and strength

I feel like a clay

Hard and dry from all the forced molding

Each laughter sounds so alien to my ears

Genuine happiness a vague memory

When I was young and none the wiser

But now I’ve grown up and I know

Darkness dwells within every one of us

And although that dark hole beckons

Calling me to take my rest within its chasm

I resist and do the role I have to play

Fake it till you make it.

Tonight…

The day has ended at last!

But the gears in my head are still working hard

Worrying over the things I did today

Did I smile too much? Or laughed too hard?

Did they notice when my mind was million miles away?

Can they hear the voices screaming in my ear?

Telling me that I’m not good enough

I can never belong with anyone

I am a failure, worthless and unimportant

Sometimes, I wish they could hear it, too

But I know these monsters are just for me

I can hear them loud and clear

And see their shadows across the room

As I sit on my bed and feel the wall

Slowly closing in, and taking out the air

I can’t breathe

I can’t find the strength to believe

And I feel that tingle again

To find relief, soon, very soon

In darkness we began and with it we will end

And I feel its alluring pull

To just end the pain and the voices

Can I do this?

If there is a God, can you hear me?

I close my eyes, trying to block out the noise

And whispering a silent promise to myself:

If I survive tonight, if I live through this,

I swear, tomorrow I will try again.