Jump

She felt like her heart had been ripped out.

Whatever was left of it, anyway, it was never whole to begin with. She felt empty, estranged, lonely. Alone. Yeah, that was the most painful one of all. Being alone. She was always so terrified of it and now her worst nightmare had come true, there was literally no one around her. No one to talk to, no one to make her feel better. No one to comfort her.

She knew she was the one who drove them all away. She knew that if she gave any of her so-called “friends” a call now they’d act as though nothing happened… they’d act like everything was just alright. But she couldn’t do it, because she’d always know. Always know that she was the one who made that extra move and that no one else bothered to.

A tear swam out of her tired eyes and fell like a rock upon her chest. Her tears were heavy and painful, each one cut her skin wherever it landed. She looked around her and felt like everything was going in slow motion. The sun was shining against her skin, burning her into a sense of fatigue. She liked it. She wanted to feel that helpless. For once, she wanted to feel out of control. For once, she wanted to feel out of it, she wanted to feel like she didn’t have a choice to make on what was about to happen to her. She was so tired of choosing, so tired of resisting.

She watched the cars below her, whooshing by so busily and carelessly. She tried to remember the last time she felt like that. For the past year it seemed like she was jumping from one worry to the next. One loss after the other. One dream shattering before the next.

She’d lost the love of her life to something so mundane yet she couldn’t fight it and it tore her heart in two. She’d lost her closest friends to distance, lust, pride and irrational fears. She lost her faith because she couldn’t believe that a divine power would bear to watch her suffer like she was. She lost her family because families tend to make too small a deal out of depression… and her inability to explain why she was fading caused them to undermine her pain. And in the end she lost her sanity… and it was the hardest thing for her to lose.

She looked down one more time. She was always so afraid of heights and that made her particularly proud of herself at that moment. There she stood on the edge and not a single cell of her body felt any sense of fear. Sadness, only sadness. That was the only emotion her body had allowed her to feel for some time now.

She waited for the ant-sized people to clear the way below her and then for the first time in her life, she craved a loss. And with one step forward, she achieved it.

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah

Blood-Red

“What is it that sinks when the heart does?”
Hope?
Happiness?
Sanity?
In my case it was faith.

I loved and lost
But then again, everyone has
Everyone’s heartbroken
Scarred
Sad and angry
Everyone’s got issues
So why is it an issue if it’s the norm?
We’ve all got problems
Yet we all shy away
From telling the truth
Yes, life’s fucked me over
And over and over
Why am I still surprised each
And every single time?

Life is cruel and with every passing day
I realize the extent of its cruelty.
Its harshness and brutality
Its unfairness
Its greed
Its persistence in taking away
Everything that makes me smile
Everything that makes me genuinely happy
I’ve tried
Countless times
To look
On the bright side
But what am I supposed to do
When they turn off the lights there?
What am I supposed to do when everything that was once bright
Turns black and empty?
When every little piece of faith I’ve had
Has tragically vanished
My faith in love
Life
Friends
Family
Has been torn to shreds
Sharp and painful little shreds
That I walk on so full of pride.

In the end the full and unabridged truth is that
No one genuinely cares
For anyone else but themselves
It’s a fact that took me years to learn
But I have yet to perfect in terms of physical enacting
It’s an art that you have to get just right
It’s intricate in its rules
And requirements
Selfishness is a survival technique
A talent,  a skill
That I now strive to obtain
I want to be able
To look at someone
Right in the eye and say
“Fuck you, I come first.”
Even when I
And everyone else
Know it’s not true
I wanna be able to act without caring
About the repercussions
The trouble I’d be causing
The pain I’d be inflicting
Just like everyone else in this Godless Earth
This troubled town where the line between
Right and Wrong
Has been drawn so thick and in blood-red ink
Yet the ones who drew it are the ones who cross it
And the ones who cross it are the ones who judge.

I loved and lost
And I lost everything in the process
Including, but not limited to, myself.

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah