Adrift

I wonder why it is, that when you reach the point where there are no more tears left, that there are always hiccoughs. It's equal parts amusing and tragic, trying to maintain the tightly furled foetal position while spasming uncontrollably. The already bruised delicate skin around my eyes feels like it has been sandpapered and I can still feel crusted salt tracks that I can't brush off because it burns. My eyes are brilliant green today. Matching my dress and my mood.

It is such a beautiful evening, so undeniably Autumn and I want to revel in the beauty of it. To feel the rush of the Gleam but it has deserted me. I don't know where to find it again. I feel so very lost. Adrift. And with no more tears to come the wind is buffeting on me, rocking me.

I have felt close to here so many times in recent months, at rock bottom, unable to breathe. But there has been my lifeline, the spectre of Paris on the horizon as a gleaming beacon to keep my focus. And maybe I will still get there, but it appears that maybe not. Or at least not in the way that I have let myself dream to keep myself from here. Here in this turbulent windy nothingness.

I feel Melancholy touching me at the moment. Depression beckoning. Wanting to welcome me with cold arms. They are so familiar to me, that I wonder if in some way it would not be better to just succumb. To stop eating. To stop dreaming. To stop.

Breathing is so difficult right now. It all seems so hard that I just want to let go and freefall for a while, forget about landing and just drop. Too tired to hold on any more. Too tired to climb.

I cuddled the Possum before, as he drank his milk and I rocked the chair and he snuggled into me as I read to him. Smelling of sweaty baby boy head and soap and the little bits of dinner that are stuck in the crevices. And he turned the pages of the book and occasionally looked up at me with his bright blue eyes and I remembered why I can't do any of that. And we finished the book, I kissed the top of his musty head and smoothed the fringe from his eyes. Rocking him in my arms before tucking him into his bed, eyes already drifting close.

And I dug my fingernails into the side of the hole and even though every limb feels like lead I held on. I can't climb, I can barely breathe. But I'm not letting go.