I fall in the leaves of autumns breeze, with a hat brown and orange tints. Yellow, orange and red make the fire, as I stare into the flames with no heart of yearning. The cackle is warm yet my hands grow cold, I hope one day they can stop moving at all. I look in the mirror and at my form, taking disgust in the way things are seen. Parents’ tell me they’d love me no matter yet I cant help the fear that wells in my brain. With intestines of fabric and veins of glass, my body cant help but fall down today. I’d look across the field if I could, to see myself the way I wanted to be. I’m not dying, I do not want to, I only want to rest. I cannot get up yet, I feel I cant bear to be cold again.
I remember catching ladybugs and watching out my window as a child, I’d be warned of cougars and bears, yet I’d still go out nonetheless. On a mountain top sat our house, we would run down the steep side with snow in our hands, careful not to slip and no fear to trip over ourselves. The sunny day when my dad would take me to Costa Rica to visit my family, I sat on the airplane next to him that time, now I sit at the dining table by myself. I draw and paint, style the clothes and design my hobbies. I sip my tea, the steam is hot next to my eyes, I should blink when tears start falling uncomfortably, but I’m too focused, on the future and never the present.
I do not care what people think, yet I cannot help but cry. I’m told too sensitive and emotional, why am I so emotional? My heart is not made of stone nor flesh like most of the human kind. Very few, like me, have a heart made of leaves. My heart is made of leaves, easy to tear and too delicate to mend back together. I am too delicate so I put them first, never myself. I am too delicate so I pace in my room, thinking about decisions to make next, conversations to begin and exactly how they would play out. I’m too delicate so I don’t eat food with my family. I am too delicate so I only take photos of myself on special events and never on any other day. I’m too delicate so I care what people think. I know time and time again only I can mend my own heart that I, myself tore. I busy my schedule on purpose so I don’t need to pay attention to it, I only mend my heart a little before bed, weaving carefully through the leaves.
I spend the night weaving, and by morning I’m taken to the doctor, I am prescribed medicine for my inability to sleep. Soon it becomes a habit, soon even when I try I cant sleep, soon I need stronger doses, soon I need a strong medication. One day I force myself to not think too much about it, think too much about the medicine I take every morning and every night. I think too much about not talking during meetings, I think too much about asking questions I shouldn’t. I think too much about not going to the doctor again because what if they tell me something i don’t want to know? I think its better to not get a diagnosis, other people can guess it for you. Then one day other people guess things about you, one day those guesses are taken for granted of being true when they are not, one day people don’t need to guess anything about you because it will get to them, but that’s okay, I feel like lying all the time.
sometimes I wonder if I had been smarter, if I had been faster if things would have gone differently, have gone good. No, I have to be pretty, I have to be better, I have to be the best. But I sit here thinking I am not, to deceive myself into believing it, soon enough I stopped crying. Soon enough I got so tired from the buildup of work and the restless nights with no sleep spent trying to mend a heart. I got tired, and I ran out of string. I got tired and I stopped working to earn the money to buy that string. I got tired and now I sit at this empty dining table, chairs too high and legs pushed against the top of the wood. No lights in the house, only blue of a fish tank where such little beings of life swim. I draw, hunched over and stare at the blank piece of paper, sometimes I wonder if I’m as blank as it yet. But i don’t feel sad or upset anymore, for some reason I’m happy. I’m happy and content with this life. I’m happy and content where i am.