Sandpaper

[Revised. Nonsensical.] 7.14.21

Steam clouding over, a damp sweat cover, and drowning under the shower. The thing was dirty, not physically, no -- it’s something worse than what it seems.

Disguised underneath a charming facade; the filthy and disgusting, needing to tear it, smooth it with rock scrub or even sandpaper. Many times, I’ve had this urge, a few times I tried. Most of the time I suppress, but what more of it? If I continued, what would be of me? Just the things popping up, never noticed but there.

The blazing sun that sheds my skin, the sand beneath my feet that I fear; I was biased when it came to weather and places, at least cold was a habitat I’d rather tolerate even as an Asian descendant --drawing pebbled patterns into my skin. The image of sand drowning me is by far worse than the ocean’s water; the sensation of sinking. Eyes closed, willingly letting it peel off the skin I hated so much along with this body.

I longed for a mirror not to see or be seen, a picture of fire heating the sand, making a crystal palace beneath me. The feel of sandpaper on my face, like a tiger’s tongue licking a wound. I wanted to get out and swim away and just let it take me.

Features prominent, matured lines over the wrinkles, calm stoic over the serious expression �" yet incomplete; just a lifeless sleep-deprived depressed girl on the mirror -- a battle of existential crisis winning with self-doubt in the abyss of her mind she cannot crawl out.

I don’t pout; I frown, I don’t look, I gaze, I’m not dumb, I’m dazed. I am trapped in my mind with only the need to go out when it wants me to -- a captive, a mindset I’ve gone to claim, and it would always be this way. I am within the walls I built up.

Looking at a wall, perplexed. I sighed, knowing I’ve been talking non-stop to nobody or even if there was someone out there -- would they find me as what I see I am?

The thoughts of things, I can reciprocate but never tell. The thoughts of things I can make but never pursue; just a dammed spiral and overdue. A sandpaper skinning, a broken carcass swimming, a piece of log in the ocean that one would notice but never care to think about.

Too disguised, a perfect armour, a flawless cover. How it would feel to drown in my thoughts and sudden change of moods? Because I can never tell, and I know I would never.

“There was no sand, but an abyssal dream, a night terror coming in real, taunting, and haunting that sliver of hope I feel for myself in the back of my mind. What was it that you feel? What is fear?” Shaking my head repetitively, I felt the covers lay damp under me, sweat filling my brows and every part of my itchy skin as I sat up, tormented.

I looked up at the mirror, she said not to, but I never listened. I got it placed on the ceiling; where I can see myself, the shadows even in the moonlight. It makes me realize just as everything I was and what I am, a reminder of myself.

I should get rid of it.

Author's Note

I want to feel, I want to feel it again, and I can never understand why we'd torture ourselves nonetheless.