Maybe we need to sink a little to swim. You held me down to breathe through the pain. 

What is this, are you the fool; fooling yourself. 

You catch yourself holding your breath under water a little too dangerously long. 

This sudden drop with other intangibles, like impulse and punches. Maybe this time, time broke and why not. 

The questions and soundboards made everything interestingly curious. There’s nothing but just my mind scripting downplaying. 

Take a walk and don’t stop, it might just be the only way to keep going on. The need for the lungs to gasp, the heart to not arrest. 86 billion traffic between my head. It’s too loud. 

It isn’t easy. 

Don’t tell me. 

You thought those won’t be triggers anymore. 

You thought it won’t hurt anymore. 

But it does. 

And today. You’re not ok. 

How could you think; you of all people had sacrificed and done it all? 

You who had your hands on my neck. 

Some days. 

Like today. 

I feel submerged under water. 

And I can’t breathe. 

Or maybe it has been like this for the longest time. I can’t seem to get out of this spiral this time round. 

 Do you know what hurts? 

When you ask for things like a mandate. 

Leaving no room for discussion and your needs demanded to be met. Regardless of my input or questions. Questions that came from a place of brainstorming for solutions.  

Maybe you weren’t taught. 

But you always have a way to show hospitality to strangers and their conveniences over mine. 

The only calls I get from you are self serving. Never about my wellbeing but yours. 

My prayer? 

To be loved by you. 

And not be your consolation. 

 I used to write songs.

But they were prices I paid in my human attempt to seal a little piece of me in time. Like Voldemort. I get why he did what he did. 

Even if I do not fully understand it now of what it was that I was trying so hard to keep. A reminder of a scar in time that I had lived. 

 If I was brought back to 2013, what would I want to flip? I couldn't bring forward an event that I wanted you there. I wouldn't be able to save you or keep you here longer. What could I change? 

Recently, we talked about time travelling.

Would I want to be 7 again or would I want to know how and when I die. 

If I cannot control the uncertainties or deviances going back to 7 and if any change in my decision might remove the chance of meeting you then I rather not risk it at all. Now that I am older, I believe things that were bound to happen will, it cannot be avoided or delayed too long, it will hit the same spot in time again. 

So, no. I do not believe that I can survive it all again. I choose to know when and how I will go. 

 

It’s the first time I missed a year. 2023.

I’m still here. 

The recent health scare shook me. 

For the first time in a long while, I felt the long shadows of death looming close behind. 

I thought this is it. This is how I will go. Cancer. 

And suddenly wanting to live was the only thing I wanted. More time. I wanted more time. To do all the to do’s, I will do it later, next year, or the following, next time; all those invisible list we earmarked for the future. But why and how were we so certain that THAT future consist of us still being there? 

What audacity. 

What a fool. 

This year. Today. Now. I’m doing them now.