Stranger to her Home

why are we here, really?

Stranger to her home

 

Broke, that’s what she is. Broker, that’s what she does. Broken, that’s how she feels. And she needed a break to start over. But she asks herself, start what exactly? Her brain’s too overworked, heart’s too sad and soul’s too weary to even make some sense. She’s scribbling bravely on her laptop like a mad woman waiting for her coffee. She’s typing her feelings off like nothing else matters. Like nothing else existed. How can someone feel so alone in a shop filled with people? How can someone block the noise of the coffee presser and the endless chatter of everyone around her? She fled, away from home. But was it ever home to begin with? She feels lost and it’s numbing. She doesn’t even flinch when the barista called her name, for it sounded uncanny. It sounded unfamiliar. It sounded sour as if she can taste it.

Steaming hot coffee landed on her table, they must’ve thought she’s a deaf-mute writing all thing things she wanted to say since birth. She just acknowledged the guy with a slight nod and went off again. She looks like a giddy girl, wearing her boyfriend’s shirt, smelling his perfume for the ninth time like her life depended on it. She looks excited as if she loved life, as if.  But life for her is a coffee she did not order. Placed on her damn table and just felt obligated to drink it. No matter how bitter it tasted. No matter how sickening the taste gets.

And nobody understands her. Life is asked. It is given. It’s a gift. Tons lined up for it. Begs for it and would even die for it. But that’s not the case for some people.  Someone just shoved it down their throat, and ordered them to live. Live with an open wound that never heals, no matter how you nurse it. It’s a wound that makes someone invalid. Had these people been evil on their previous lives? Is living a curse for them to make up for what they did?

 Paying off a debt you didn’t know you had. If life was a choice, will you choose to live?

If I was asked, you probably know my answer.

 

I woke up on earth ugly. My cry is something you wouldn’t wish to hear. Unless you’re a sick f**k and longs to hear agony. My birth was a mess. No, scratch that. Me, being alive is. Mom was probably a weak female in her time. That someone, who relies on men to feel stronger. A damsel in distress, that‘s what she was. Her husband found someone new after having 2 kids together, eloped with the b***h. Leaving my mom, my older sister and brother. Yes, if mom was a weak s**t then her husband was a dick. Someone who finds strength in feeding his ego yet still has no balls. Mamai, being on her weak and usual self, got swept off her feet by another dick on this story, much dicker that the 1^st one or probably the dickiest of them all. Then she had me. Wonder how a filthy sperm created something beautiful. Me. Yep. But , Why mom? Why? Why do pure-hearted, intelligent women fall for the wrong men? I wouldn’t want to be you. So I build these walls. Luring men with my mystic façade, leaving them wondering why aren’t they enough. And I revel on the pure joy grieving gives me, projecting me as the victim, and men will always be the predators, just like the a******s above.

Now, tell me, who’s the baddest b***h? Hahaha I’m kidding. I always do, because my life’s a joke.

I dreamt of telling what I feel to the world, hoping someone, somewhere feels the same way. I wanted to do this, hell, I even imagined myself alone in the woods writing my heart out. Pouring what’s left of me, emptying my being. Someone who can see through my iron façade, someone who can take off the mask I’ve been wearing for so long if created a second skin.

Rip my chest off with a strength impossible to own, to forcefully awaken my heart that has been dead for years, pump it ‘til I see blood, break and un break every fiber of my being so I’d wake up and feel alive, again. Bruised, but alive. Scathed, but happy. Because now I am neither. I am alive but not living. Happiness is a choice they said, but I was never given choices, never given reasons. For every time I wanted to feel joy there comes pain. Why are you always sad, they often ask? Why are you so restless, like your hands, scribbling words as if they have a mind of their own? Unending, words flow like a river, wanting to bathe every soul that it sees fitting.  But fitting, I see none. No soul has ever taken interest in my pleading eyes. No soul has ever understood unspoken words, that behind the broken smile there stood a broken girl. Limping, holding her beaten heart trying so hard to keep it in one piece. Because all they hear is her laughter, all they see is her smile. With teeth, like she’s ready to devour bloody meat, have an orgy and display her youth. But her will to live is as thin as her hair, dead like its ends. Her laughter is a muffled cry at night, her lips tremble as she smiles, and to hold back tears yearning to escape like a prison break.

How long will she fake it? How long will she tame the demons inside her, roaring like lions, gnawing her flesh, unseen? But she can feel their fangs, sinking deep into her bones, excruciating. But that what reminds her, that she’s here. She’s breathing, she’s alive. She’s part of this tiresome world, a part of the drama, she has a role to play, and that is to feel the pain, for it demands to be felt.

 

She lives, because she can’t die.

 

 

Not just yet.

She’s at it again, drowned in her unearthly thoughts, waiting for her coffee at a quaint café somewhere in her hometown. By hometown she means somewhere she was raised but not fully acquainted with because she was never home. Never felt home. She took some days off, hoping to clear her head. But she still peaks on her laptop for emails she knows not directed to her. But doing so burdens her. It’s like doing a job in a local construction, carrying cement on her back, under the scorching heat of the sun, it’s like solving a math problem, whacking her head with the mug she’s holding, searching for answers, why do we need to live? Why am I here? Who gave me this coffee? I’m sure as heavens I didn’t pay for this damn thing. I took this vacation to clear my head, but I will be back in the city from a dream, with the same damn problem, the same stupid questions. More tired than ever. Head’s still fogged. Mind’s till restless. Heart’s still bruised but beating, oh how I wish it’d stop doing so.

 Wish I could write forever, but this s**t can’t pay my bills so it’s still as s****y as anything else. Passion, chase it they said. I can, but with an empty stomach. And soon I’ll write rubbish because of hunger. For I, had quit my job. To write for I’ve chosen it, my heart chose it. But who will read my angst? Who will understand where I’m coming from? What kind of being wants to be fed by my negativity? Nobody, but myself. I like what I create, it’s something at the back of my brain, there’s a genius girl in there somewhere producing these tales. I haven’t freed her, but I’ve been feeding her, with the most delicious meals; books. Because books aren’t life, they’re better.

But who is she kidding? No one’s quitting their job, unless you’re asked to leave by your boss because you haven’t been giving back. In short, you have been found useless and unproductive. Sucks, right? But for goodness sake, can somebody suck my misfortune too? So she’ll go around job hunting, hunting because you know there’s nothing left to hunt. All are taken.

Then you settle for less at least you’d get a penny out of it and continue existing like a weed, on a garden, hoping to be plucked out by some gardener and eventually end your life. Because that’s what you want right?

Or will you be okay after getting a 5-minute romantic hug and a billion dollars? No? okay, you’re hopeless.

 

She wondered off, in a city she was born and raised but nobody even remember her, and she liked the anonymity. Like a fresh start, just what she needs. She went back to the coffee shop, where she can be alone with her thoughts, her fingers itched to write again. But her spot was taken by a blonde bimbo probably waiting for her lover, drinking the coffee she obviously doesn’t like, boredom clearly written on her face, more defined than her brows, scrolls on her feed ,up and down, up and down, unending, like her false pretense. Then an old man settled across her, with a sinister smile and all I see is a predator ready to engulf the prey and eat her guts while she screams bloody murder. I can almost hear his mind, I can almost hear him chewing her flesh like a famished wolf left to die in the cold. He gently touched her cheek and I swear I saw her tremble beneath his palm. God, how I wanted to slap his monstrous hand away, I might have stared too much with disgust because the monster turned his head to me and was met with his beady eyes. Now he’s staring back at me like a child who finally found his lost teddy. He looks delighted. Almost aroused, too excited. I drank the last few drops of my coffee with shaking hands and buried my head in my book, fingers twitching with anxiety; heart beating like I’ve ran a marathon. I can still feel his eyes at the back of my skull, trying to catch my attention, the kind I was giving them a little while ago. But I wouldn’t give him that. Not anymore. His whole being frightens me.

I shouldn’t have gone back.

 

I hear them; again, amidst the music being played, amidst the rapid beating of my heart, I hear them. Each one fighting to take over, yearning to dominate, longing for control.

Of my body, of my sanity. They’re in here, deep within, they’re too many but I know them all too well, because they’re all me.

My demons.

and I call them by their names.

One is a bit too shy to even look at herself in the mirror because all she sees are her flaws. Too shy to even look someone in the eye because she knows everyone has something to say. Too shy to even ask so she’d go around making a fool of herself, most of the time. Too shy to even blink because she thinks she doesn’t deserve peace by closing her eyes. Too shy to even try to live happily because she thinks somebody else deserve life more than she does.

The other one is too strong. Too strong to brush off  the sight of her flaws and replace it with a resting b***h face nobody could come across because she thinks she’s better than everyone else, Everyone else is too shallow for her liking, she sees women as too much over the top, trying so hard- she wouldn’t even think about it. She sees men as weak beings, using women to appear strong- what a pity.

The other one’s a bit too emotional, and she’s the one scribbling. Because she feels so much that she needs to write them down or else she’d burst, like a bubble, with paint in it. and it’ll splatter all over the white sheet canvas, like a painter who hasn’t painted for years, loving the feel of his paint brush against his fingers, Intricate.

There’s this one who’s feeling all the pain, hurting since birth. And nobody asked her for it. She just feel the need to mourn, to grieve. And that’s what she does best. She feels too much, as if she carries the angst of the earth on her shoulders. Weighing her down like being stumped by an elephant on her spine, then she wonders why it aches all the time. She’s over-stressed because she over-thinks, and sometimes, she over-loves, like a saint.

The list goes on forever, there are still plenty of them in me. Named but quiet. Tamed but ready. Patient yet unkind.

All together dangerous.

Now she’s smooching the mug of her coffee, undisturbed by the idea that someone had done so and it’s now an indirect kiss. And the barista didn’t have the heart to clean it well because who cares? It’s not like you’ll get cavities or something. Gross. She leaned back on the soft linen, crossed her legs in a feminine manner like an old lady about to reminisce the old days, and tried to remember the young boys she’s been associated with, she laughed like crazy and went to grab her earphones and listen to Taylor swift to get in the mood. Babies, with complete set of teeth, they were. Armed with mugs as gifts because they learned she loves coffee. But for heaven’s sake, will she ever get the beans she wanted? Nobody thought of that, she liked the smell of beans, dark, roasted. It’s therapeutic. Yet none of the babies knew, so she had a large amount of coffee mugs at home. She remembered getting the 1^st bouquet of flowers, cheeks flushed in deep velvet. She was a tomboy in her time, carrying flower and walking it home would be a disaster but throwing it away would be a waste, but deep down she has melted, like an ice cream abandoned its cone to embrace the sun. It must’ve been a prank-

 

 

 

She’s back. To being someone she refuses to be. She’s back. To the place she left. She’s back, to run around in circles. She’s back feeling incapable, disorganized, depressed and unwanted. Even herself, disowns her; her own flesh and blood. Now she refuses to eat, despite how much her body calls for food, she denies any craving; she’s trying to lose not just weight but all the toxic that has been eating her sanity. Her head’s too blurry to even think rationally, she loses interest. She’s losing it. She’s back at it, again.

“ But then she met someone, she needed a part time lover, someone who can absorb her filth like a sponge, attachment wasn’t her intention, she had her fair share of men, she had enough, another heartbreak is something she’s been hiding from. But then she decided to try loving, because why not? Maybe love can melt the hate, maybe love can make her happy, maybe love can break the walls she built for so long it almost became her second skin. Maybe love is all that matters after all. But is he worth it? No one’s worth it, especially men. They’re downright a******s. But is she willing to take the risk?

 

Tsarot.

 

 

 

Reviews

[A M John]

This is piece is positively glowing with the sincerest rage and sadness. You have a true sense of emotional authenticity here. There are so many tantalising things I wanted more detail about (not a criticism of the writing, the piece just piqued my curiosity) because everything feels so utterly real. The grammar could be tightened up a bit but I honestly don't think it takes anything away from the impact of the piece. It was good and moving to read. Keep going.

[Bambee]

Thank you. And for the record, everything feels utterly real because it is. This is my story.

[YanZeros]

She lives because she can't die - strong words here, never give up on love, we yearn for what really is true. The real home, we can find it here, in our hearts. Welcome to writerscafe, I look forward to your next write.