NOVEL NEXT 261: When I Want To Give Up
Seventeen-thousand, two-hundred and eleven Views. One-hundred-ninety-three Followers.
And a thousand unshed tears.
Unshed no more.
"Mom? Dad? Did you see it? My poem? People read it, and they liked it."
The shower water ran over my face and rinsed the tears down my body and towards the drain. I didn't even try to stop the wrenching of my heart and the weight of two decades of grief, doubt, and loss pouring out of my eyes.
"What would you say if you could see what's become of my life? I don't know what I'm doing. Nothing. I amount to nothing, guys. My life is so pitifully small. I've done nothing with it that matters."
The sobs became near wails, and my hands reached for shower walls to keep me upright.
"Except maybe now? Maybe this matters? My story? My—
poem?"
"I— I don't even know what it's about. 'Unwritten Dreams?' Love I wish I knew but don't know how to find? Corridors of memory that lead to somewhere? Where is it going, guys? What's it all for?"
I gave up and sat down, letting the water beat on my back.
"Do you know? Wherever you are now? Does all of this lead to something? Does it matter?"
And something softened inside me. Or outside. Something that wasn't quite me but wasn't unfamiliar.
Soft.
Loving.
Accepting.
And I was okay.
I nodded and turned off the water.
"Okay. Okay, guys. There's a part of me and a part of you that's still connected. And I don't know how to do whatever it is that I'm walking towards. I have no answers, only questions. But— I— I'm not alone, am I? You'll help me?"
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My voice was a barely audible whisper, "Please?"
I remembered the last words of the poem I'd written that morning:
"For in the quietest reverie
Are secret rooms untold.
And what lies waiting for the unwary
Is danger manifold.
Will you take the mantle
Of those who walk unafraid?
Or will you hide in cowardice
Like those who've been betrayed?"
Those words felt like something profound that I didn't grasp but would know in time. That'd happened to me once before, long ago. I dug through my bedside table for an old journal and flipped to the page that'd been so often thumbed open.
Lines I'd written at seventeen when the grief counselor recommended putting my feelings into poems. Ten years ago.
"Love Beyond"
It makes no sense.
And needn't so.
Some things are better left unsaid.
For they come from beyond.
Beyond where, you ask?
But I cannot tell.
Whispers and secrets
I know so very well.
For in the dark of night so deep
Where love grows and children weep
Is the place where worlds touch
And none need sleep.
In that moment
a breath
a sigh
Never say goodbye.
I'd dreamt of my parents that night. At first it was a crystal-clear flower, and when I touched it a single, solitary note. Then two petals peeled away and grew into light and warmth and love. The smell of Mom's shampoo and Dad's favorite mints. I was surrounded in a glow so peaceful that I no longer knew grief or loss or shame.
I'd awakened feeling rinsed anew.
Life hadn't gotten easier, but I'd known that there were mysteries aplenty that I didn't quite understand but wanted more of. And I'd let go of trying to fit in at school and stopped caring about a lot of things that those around me found important.
It made me different; or, it accentuated differences that were already there, and I was okay with it.
But it also meant that I didn't really try to relate to people, and I still wasn't sure how to. But maybe I could figure that out if I kept writing. If people liked my story. If they read my strange poetry and felt something; a kinship to my words.
Then, maybe— maybe there was some one, some way that I could be connected to some thing real.
"Okay, Mom, Dad, I'll keep going. I'll keep trying. Be with me; when I want to give up?"
Pulling back my duvet and climbing into bed, I closed the door on that day, saying good bye to the gloom that'd weighed me down and slept the deep rest of the peaceful.
