My choked sobs echo around the empty space in my room. They vibrate off the walls and bounce around the air in waves as the sound of new sobs follow them as tides of the ocean do. I’ve experienced pain like this. The rawness, intangible yet so piercing you can’t focus on anything else. This isn’t the first time I’ve laid staring at the ceiling wishing, wanting, hoping that life will change for the better. And soon.

Finally it did. But it was ripped faster from me than it feels anything I’ve ever known.

Things settled.

Things were good.

Things were getting back on track.

But now, all this dirt has been kicked up and I can’t see anything past tomorrow. I’m frustrated, I’m confused, I’m upset, and my anger is palpable.

I don’t understand why I am always dealt the cards that I have. How much can one person take? How much more can I be pushed? When do I reach the point where it is finally okay for me to admit I am anything except okay? The tears slipping down my cheeks are soaking my shirt. The room is warm and suddenly feels too small. It’s too small for me, too small for my thoughts and feelings and once lofty aspirations.

Now, everything I worked so hard for, everything I built, everything feels crumbled. It might not be, but my mind loves to assume the worst forcing me to give in to believing that as my reality. Everything feels shattered. Everything is just so damn not what I knew it as. It’s infuriating. I hate that I am home now. I hate that I am not in the city where I’ve built a life in the past 3 years. I hate that I finally reached a point where I know exactly what someone else is thinking, but I’m not with them and I can do zero about it. I have no resolution. I hate so much about my situation.

I am powerless. Each day that goes by, I feel myself sinking. I feel myself retreating. I feel myself giving up. I’m losing the battle to my thoughts. I’m losing my handle over my emotions. I need to feel cared for. I need to not feel as alone as I do.

But as I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I see myself wandering the desert in search of someone, another person. But everyone I know is asleep. I can’t call them at this hour, no matter how much I want to. No matter how much it frustrates me that nobody ever seems to stop to check if I’m okay, to see how I’m doing. It feels like it is always just me caring so much more than my counterpart, in any relationship, any friendship.

Maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t know. I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I stare at the gray numbers on my digital clock glowing at me in the darkness. This room feels emptier and more lonesome than ever. For now, it is my only company as I watch the numbers crawl by slower than wax dripping off a candle. It is only my racing mind that keeps me awake, that signals the flood of tears to flow.

I wish I could just fall asleep and turn it off.

M