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For the broken ones who are in need of something dark, morbid, and beautiful.
There will never be a way to explain why I am this way. It’s something that you endure wholly, entirely. A deep and empty pit inside your flesh that never closes, no matter what you try to fill it with. No matter what thread you try to sew it shut with, it gapes and itches. An emergency exit that waits patiently for any who stray. My doctor says it’s a chemical imbalance in my brain, and fuck, they’re probably right. But it doesn’t stop the very real, un-chemical, raw nothingness that ravages my entire being. The pills don’t help, they never have, and none of my therapists seem to understand
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Avoidance has always been my coping mechanism. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t matter. My day goes on.
I’m burning inside, and it hurts. I just want to stop hurting. I should’ve built my walls of cement like his. I’ve tried vulnerability and stupid, senseless love. I often wonder if I’d be different if I hadn’t. Now my walls are impenetrable—no one gets in, I don’t go out.
My mind is a plague that needs to be cured and people like me are damned to chase this mysterious elixir.
“You should wait… and it doesn’t have to be for anything specific. I’m just saying—wait for the weight of the world to pass. Wait until the tremors that wrack through your skull drift into the depths again. Wait until the sun rises, and the light makes you feel a little less pointless.”
“What if waiting doesn’t work?” I whisper. Liam smiles easily at me. His presence is like an eerie forest. I want to stay for a while and sit quietly in his dreary gravity. “You let me know and I’ll hold you until the darkness fades.”
“It’s onyx. Rumored to banish grief. You’ll have to let me know if it works for you—I didn’t get much use out of it.” The stone warms in my palm with the meaning he gives it. I have no clue if that’s true or not, it’s a fucking rock for all I know, but the mind is a powerful thing. The hope that it could banish grief is more than I’ve had in a while.
“But it only makes you all the more a wonder. So again, who could possibly plant such dark, sinister seeds into a heart like yours?”
She’s like this every night. I don’t know why, and I’m not sure if she’ll ever tell me what plagues her dreams, but I don’t mind holding her like this. It makes the itch in the back of my mind fade. The need to feel pain is almost completely gone when I’m with her.
I watch as a sea of blue, as bright and sunny as a day at the beach, takes over his normally grim eyes.
And I’m… sad. It’s a feeling that’s as painful as it is freeing. When I’m emotionally detached, everything is easier, because nothing matters. Even if I were to die, it would not matter. But the second sorrow is able to burrow its way into my bones, I’m more melancholic about the defining moments in my life than I ever thought possible. Liam lifts his head and his eyes land on me. His brows pull together with concern as he walks up to me, clutching my chin with his hand and lifting it so I look at him. The soft pad of his thumb brushes the tears off my cheek as he mutters, “Did I reach you?”
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No one’s ever hugged me so desperately with their entire heart.
“You didn’t make me sad, Liam… You opened up old wounds. I felt the music coming from your soul, and I felt the pain and sorrow that I’ve locked away for such a long time. I’m happy that I cried—and that it was you who broke my walls down enough to do so.”
It’s surprising that someone like me could find a familiar soul, one that I am finding it harder by the day to exist without. I’ve kissed her body countless times and I’ll do it countless more.
“I knew then I had to see you for myself. To see if you were indeed pitiful, though I had a feeling you wouldn’t be.” His blue eyes caress my face as if I’m a lost treasure he’s been searching the ends of the earth for. “No—I knew the moment I saw you. You were not to be pitied. Your mind is a beautiful and dangerous thing, Wynn, sick as it may be. But your soul illuminates the world around you, setting all else ablaze with your inevitable anguish.”
“I saw a young woman. A confused little flower trying to bloom in the daylight when you were always meant to thrive beneath the stars, unlike those around you. You’ve wilted enough for the world. Don’t you think?” Liam’s smile and question fill every part of my weary soul. “It’s time to let go of the things that hurt.”
Life here isn’t so bad. It’s a place far from the city and bustle. I think if I lived somewhere like this, I could be happy. Find myself with nature and step away from the unrealistic standards of the buzzing world. This is the sort of life I was meant for. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be small and hidden away. Most gems are.
“Words that convinced me to die.” “And who said these words? What were these words?” Dr. Prestin asks matter-of-factly. “Everyone who ever claimed they loved me.” Every word lodges deep in my throat like a knife. Betrayal by those who were meant to care for me in the darkest of times. “They acted innocent and coy, drawing me in like fresh air. Wishing to know what ailed me. And the only thing I ever learned from opening up to people was that they desired to know exactly what would hurt me, only to turn the blade back and inflict riotous, irrevocable damage themselves.”
And somehow, a great weight has been sloughed from my shoulders. The tear that rolls down my cheek isn’t filled with rage or hot with disdain for the world. It’s sadness for myself. The first grief I’ll allow myself to feel for the sins against me. Why is it so hard to show ourselves mercy? Did a part of me believe that I deserved what I endured, just as Liam does? Why didn’t anyone help me? Didn’t I ask more than once? Didn’t my eyes scream loud enough for those that observed me so callously to stop?
My love for you two… It’s endless. Like a sea that just keeps lowering the depths to make more room for the life we three have ahead.”
“Remedium meum,”
