I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death by Philippa Hatendi (First Place for Creative Nonfiction 2010)

First Place for Creative Nonfiction 2010

The day had been good. I had a hot dog, I remember the sour, hot taste of the mustard as it sat on top of that juicy dog…I remember the cold, slick descent of the smoothie as it slithered down my throat. I remember listening to a friend tell me about letters, I remember watching a cartoon…I remember wanting to pass out. But mostly, I remember the smile on his face (the one he kept for me) when I walked into his room…oblivious to the detour that was about to send me crashing over the jagged cliff edge into the water.

“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves. Until one day there are none.” I whispered.

These words had touched me before I even knew what it meant for a heart to die, sure, hearts do break and mine has once or twice before. But this is more than heartbreak, this is more than pain…this emptiness could swallow the world. Why does it feel like this, this time? I sat in the stairwell outside his room, unable to breathe, unable to move and I couldn’t help but recollect the nights…all the nights when I had lain under him. Tonight, as I shed the cotton camisole, and all the things that came before it, on top of it, under it, I felt as though finally I was taking a chance at redemption….a taste of normalcy…of hope. When his hands followed the trail the cotton had left behind, I felt warmth…what lush deception.

But as I walked through the cold night, the metal tip of my umbrella scratching the pavement, I realized perhaps I wasn’t meant for that. Perhaps…okay, not perhaps…certainly, he was not meant for me.

To be out of the ordinary is a blessing on in some spheres, in others..it is a curse oneself. Upon myself, upon my core, upon the sealed rosebud, the inner sanctum of womanhood that’s caged, repressed. The way I felt inside at that touch, the little shivers screaming through my system, was the way that I had always longed to feel but had never mastered. The way I had always dreamed I would feel, soaring so high above the ground that all the universe bloomed beneath my weightless feet. I felt brave, courage taking the reins of my frightened soul and whipping me forward, urging me to explore, to savor, to taste a world I had always wanted to know. My body sensed his coming before I even saw his face, my heart skipped, feet floundered, breath closed the door to words. Maybe somewhere in the midst of the flurry, of the heat, I knew his departure was imminent…that the end was nigh. In that I could trust, even if I never had trusted him.

To care for someone, to shed your barriers like a tree in autumn, to watch them fall and crinkle at your feet is in itself a grand feat. I have always heard it said that to open oneself up, to unfurl the petals of that pink and succulent flower, is to possess the courage of a warrior…living in knowledge you have the strength to endure it all…even when it goes to shit.

I cared.

I did. I cared!

I walk aimlessly, the puddles wetting my shoes, hearing the click of a girl’s heels as she goes past me. A boy follows after her, lapping affectionately at her heels as she sways before him. The boy is boisterous, bright, filled with anticipation for the night to begin…literally bursting, a smile slides across his face…I’m sure he’d stolen many-a-heart. Those two reminded me of him and I, he lapped at my beaded heels, sighed at flesh, stretched pin-point…so ready to snap, so ready to take. Now, as I look back at his window it somehow feels colder…

Even as I sit here writing this, my fingers skittering across the black keys, I feel nothing. Like the chords within my very depths remain untouched, unchanged, doesn’t sadness have a sound? Not the silent trail of teardrops, not the hurried clumsy steps of an escapee…but a sound, a scream, A CRY?! Doesn’t it wrench at you, tear at you, split you in two? So why am I still whole? Why am I still here…feeling nothing? He couldn’t do it anymore, he couldn’t try. Those were the words…or something like them, nevertheless its just semantics…but even with those semantics the message was clear; the time that was allotted to presumably be wasted on me was finally up.

Tick tock Tick tock Tick fucking tock …

It’s Over.
So where is the Reaper? Grim as he is, his joy emanates from finding a bare, frail neck on which to hang his noose…he can hang it here. Hanging it here, pull the ground out beneath me and hopefully my neck will

S

N

A

P

What a nice, easy departure it would make

1. No blood on the cream, linoleum tiles of my dorm room…

2. No mess.

3. No fuss.

My mother tells me he was not worthy of me. Fair enough. I agree. We were not worthy of each other.

But as I stand in the shower, water spilling over my head and scalding me I think:

Doesn’t make it suck any less.

Replaying his words in my head, their finality rusting on the edges of my frayed thoughts.

repeat re- stop wind pause

Over and Over, wearing out my mind

I look down at the drain-hole, all his malevolence swirling at my feet greedily at my feet. I hope that he will drain out of me, too.

In this astral plane, this concrete castle, with its banners bleeding red and blue…in this second world that they call “College” there is no one left to care for the wounded, the fallen, the broken. A battlefield strewn with unburied dead, corpses rotting with maggots, all died from the carnal lusts of the flesh, the greed that comes in thinking you desire to conquer a heart..till you realize it was always barren.

Thats what killed them…there was nothing there for them in the end.

Like him…and I.

I’m shedding…

Maybe one day

I will be a butterfly.

But not today

My eyelids are heavy….

Head and pillow collide, blankets lie over me…

I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death.