8-18

I am coming back to myself, slowly. The woman inside has ceased her frantic scratching and instead gripped firmly. I feel her moving. She’s pulling free, stretching aside ribs and tendons and heartache with determination and strength. Pausing, catching her breath.

I am cold, still. I’ve shut myself off. Diverted my energy elsewhere. I don’t feel what I probably ought to, not yet. I’m not sure I feel much of anything right now. It’s a nice relief from feeling everything at once. A cessation of screaming noise.

I am Scarlett O’Hara. I’ll think about it tomorrow.

Tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and then tomorrow, until my ribcage has expanded, my body bursts, and she is free of her cage. A messy birth. A resurrection.

For now my brain is quiet. It got the answer it needed. No more whirling. No more speculations. No more panicked, but-what-ifs?

Unfortunate, I think numbly as I sit on the carpet and look out the window. A detached thought settling like a feather in a breeze. Unfortunate.

No longer a tragedy. No longer insurmountable.

This is life, and I am good at life. I am a creature in the wild. I am evolving. I am adapting. I am survival at its more keen. I am the edge of a knife. I am lobotomized. I have nothing left to feel but the vague, distant resonation. Unfortunate. Unfortunate.

I’ll think about it tomorrow.

The fire within has cooled to ashes. I stir them with my foot, curiously. The fervor kept me moving, but this detachment gives me strength. I am strong, I am moving. I am the sharp lip of a broken cup. I am rain on asphalt.

Fall is creeping into my hemisphere, and the cloudy days and cool air suit me. Leaves dry up and transform and their death births fresh growth. The tree sheds its most beautiful pieces to compress its strength.

I am forgetting why I loved you. It’s a sweet relief. You’re becoming entangled with the others in my head. Different faces, but the same man. Distant. Selfish. Charismatic.

That magic I felt in finding you, the one I had been looking for, that visceral shock that you existed, is fading.

I remember it, vaguely, but my mind pulls away. I will think about it tomorrow, tomorrow.