Severance

the act of ending a connection, relationship, etc. or of being separated from a person, place, etc

This isn’t the usual style my pen forces upon me. These aren’t the same ways I align my words. Everything is different. I have been stripped of my need to write—stripped of my ability to think.I have been walking through this world with a void in the middle of my chest, gaping, bottomless.

This isn’t your usual clever prose, your dose of wit and hope. No. Dear reader, today, you will have to think for me. You will have to make sense of this. I have lost my ability to guide you with my words, to stir something in your subconscious, to lead you towards understanding. Today, you will have to find the meaning yourself. And if you do—if you manage to catch a sliver of me within you—perhaps I will find solace.

recommend listening to this while reading ;)

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It began months ago. Or maybe it began the moment I could speak? I mean im often seen as the tough girl who grabs life straight by the balls and laughs at the absurdity of it all. The one who lifts others when they falter, who cracks a joke when the room is too quiet, who makes sure everyone is okay. But that’s not what this is about. This isn’t another story about the girl who hides her sadness behind humor. No. You’ll have to help me figure out what happened to me.

I don’t miss people. I never have. I can love them, but I do not miss them. I don’t know what longing feels like. Perhaps I’ll think of you when I listen to your favorite song or remember how much you love the color yellow when the sun shines on my face. Nevertheless, it ends there, there’s no heartache because I cant see you, I wont dream of you, I wont lose my sleep. I’ll just casually forget you. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don’t cry. It has been a long time since I have. The tears boil beneath my skin, sometimes pressing against the barrier, but they never spill over. I can laugh until my ribs ache you can wound me with words that cut through bone and yet, the tears remain locked away. The last time they escaped, the sky was dark and bright all at once, and I was so lost, so deeply gone, that they vowed never to return. Never to hurt me again.

I do not know love.I categorize emotions based on their physical manifestations—anger in clenched jaws and furrowed brows, sadness in slumped shoulders, happiness in the creases around my mouth, anxiety in sweaty palms. But love? Love is a ghost. It does not press against my skin, does not make my heart stutter. I know I love you, I just do not feel it.

I have humans in this world I love more than anything, my siblings. As much as I am capable. Love has never interested me as a feeling, but in action, it is my very nature. I protect them, make sure they’re happy. I teach them the essence of life when I haven’t figured it out yet, I teach them how to read, write, talk and how to roll their eyes. I give them all that I can, I would move mountains for them, cross thunders and typhoons for them. Do you get how deeply embedded their existence is in me?Have you cared so much for another human being that their pain hurts you more than them? Have you ever woken up just for a human?

I never needed to define myself. I am a collection of books and films, of fleeting conversations and late-night musings. I am every poem I have ever woven, every joke that has ever left my lips, every moment that had ever torn me apart or built me back up. But there was always one thing that tethered me to myself, one thing that felt like home. And then that, too, was taken away.

They left me and i never got the chance to say goodbye. I never got to hug them, to kiss them 4 times as our ritual demands. They left, and I didn’t know then that they would take me with them. That I would become an empty husk in their absence. That I would lose my purpose. My utility.

You’d have to meet them to understand. You’d have to meet the angry teenager who’s also hilarious, he will rarely speak out but his face will give him out. You’d have to talk to the 6 year old little girl whos born to act, who’s fearless and will annoyingly go against everything she’s tought. You’d have to observe the gentle giant , the 8 year old tender-hearted boy who carries kindness in his bones. And then you would have to know me- truly - you would have to see that they are a reflection of me. My jokes. My mannerisms. My words. They have taken what they loved from me and made it their own. So tell me, what use am I if I cannot help them anymore? What am I, if I am no longer needed?

When they went and I had to sleep in another bed that wasnt mine, I didnt realise I’d amount to about nothing.The words stopped making sense. The air felt too thick. My mind became uninhabitable.. No one needs me anymore. I don’t have to explain how to button up your shirt or how to draw a kangoroo. I don’t have to cut the carrots into slightly smaller pieces anymore. Nobody needed me for advice, I wasn’t needed anymore. And everything in my life seemed to just fall. Fall in a never ending slope.

I started aching see their faces, to maybe wake up to them yelling in the living room but that never happened. nothing made sense. Not the silence, not my lack of passion, not my inability to sleep. Nothing. I had nobody to take care of and in turn no one would give me my forehead kisses anymore. I was void of emotions. Nothing was funny anymore, nothing made sense anymore, i couldnt recognize myself anymore. I couldn’t write for god’s sake!

One Thursday evening, I went to bed feeling a little less energized hoping I could just take a nap and everything would just go away. I was suprised to feel my shoulders trembling and my lips quiverring. My forehead formed wrinkles and as my eyes closed, a warm flush of tears spilled down my cheeks. My body betrayed me. My first reaction was to stop. But I had no reason to be strong anymore. And honestly, I had no strength left. So i wept. Like a child, wondering why. Why me, why now, why this way, what did I do to get here, was I ever good at anything but being a good sister? What have I really accomplished. I’ll let you guess the answers I found.

I have always known how to calm others, how to ease their worries, how to convince them that things will be okay. But I cannot do that for myself. Why? Why is it that the healer cannot heal herself? I was becoming a void, my texts seemed pathetic to me as they lacked depth and emotions, this one too maybe. My dreams and ideas were just as ghosts in my notes. And my friends wouldn’t seem to notice that I needed the biggest hug and 4 kisses to be well.

Since then, I cry.

I cry out to the heavens, to myself, i just really cry. I wail in the shower, tear up infront of a action movie (?), and weep in my bed. Maybe i mourn what i coud’ve been, i mourn my house and bedsheets, i mourn my mornings and evenings filled with entertainement, i mourn my life. I didnt have much, but my siblings were more than i could ever ask. And when i lost our life i lost myself aswell, a part of me that i loved very much.

Is this grief?

Can you grieve a bed? A kitchen? A couch? Can you grieve the chaos of children running around? Can you grieve the sharp attitude of a teenage brother?

Can you grieve yourself? Your laughter. Your carelessness. Your touch. Your dreams?

Tell me, dear reader, can you?