It feels like light bulbs are my longest standing nemesis. It all started in the year 2011. After I returned from Lanka and joined private O’level classes. She’s always made me miserable in ways I couldn’t understand why.

We lived in a one-room apartment and the only time I could breathe without suffocating in my own space was when everyone slept and I had the sitting room for myself. I loved reading then, books were my only escape. I’d buy a book almost every other day and finish one overnight. I’d stay in the sitting room reading with the light on. But this came to a stop when my mom scolded me for having the light on by saying I didn’t pay the bills, she did, and she switched it off. After that, all my nights were spent in the dark. I still preferred staying up during the nights anyway because this was the only time where she wasn’t yelling at me. It’s was like I wasn’t doing living right. She didn’t like anything about the way I was or anything I did.

I was also only 18 years old at the time. Of course, I wasn’t paying bills.

Fast forward to today, 2019. We are living in a two room apartment, I pay more than what goes to rent for my brother who’s studying abroad. I have my own room for now since he’s not here. My mother still gets riled about the light tho, but this time it’s the one in the bathroom. I’d constantly forget to switch it off and she sees my bathroom light from the kitchen. She’ll race in often and say something passive-aggressive about it and switch it off and leave. I mean, she could just politely ask me to. Because humans are forgetful creatures, and this is only a tiny slip from a daily routine. Anyways. This drove my anxiety so I had black tape on the switch which I could see from my bed if the bathroom light lad been left on. This worked. But today, somehow, once again, I left it on forgetfully. So, my mother, she comes back from work after 12hrs, I know, she must be tired? I even called to check on why she was running late. I was starving all day and ended up ordering in. The first thing she does after she comes in is storming in and switching off my light followed by a rude remark. My mother people. No, she doesn’t ask me how I am or if I‘d had anything. The light was obviously more important. I mean, I’d been raped and shit under my parents watch, but she’s more furious over me leaving the bathroom light on than anything else. So, I thought I’d put an end to this. Went and had a good look at the bathroom light which was making my life obviously miserable, the bitch was covered in a huge ass complicated cover. Found one of the tools and took the screws out, removed the cover and removed the bulb. My bathroom light is never going to be on again. Ever. Because I’m tired of this shit.

I once dated an asshole who didn’t like my breath on his skin. This lead me to not breathing around him and an unhealthy pattern of holding in my breaths and now there are days I feel like my lungs don’t have the capacity to pump the oxygen I need.

People you love can infect you in ways you never even imagined.

Don’t love. Don’t people.

I knew in my gut he was lying yet I chose to believe him. Because the truth hurt. And today, after so many months it hurts even more because I can’t believe I chose to be his fool and ignored everything so evident. I needed his lies to be his truths so badly. It was crucial for my sanity, to go on and pretend he loved me, like he promised he did. And I never promised that I loved him, yet somehow it feels like that’s all I did.

His words were loud and meaningless, while mine were silently weighing my heart.

The part of me that loved him then, loves him the same even today. The part of me he hurt, hurts the same even today. Worst is, the part of me that hurt him, doesn’t understand how to compensate at all. Do we call it even, or truce?

I’m trying to understand how it all fell apart. Maybe deep down I believed I didn’t deserve him. Maybe deep down I was still too hurt. Maybe deep down I was even more hurt that I hurt him first.

But that’s the thing, you don’t know what to feel when it’s over. You think about everything. I think about all the times he was my hero, I think about all the times I was my enemy. I think about all the times he reminded me of my shortcomings. And then I think about how I can never forgive him, for a lot of things. And also how I can never forgive myself, for the other things. And maybe that’s why, it just can’t be. Without forgiveness and trust, what would we even be.

We had a shot, we fucked up. We can’t sit on these wounds hoping they’d disappear. Because they won’t.

Sometimes in life, this is how it has to be. You make the hardest choices, even if it means walking away. Because in the end it also broke you and it was your fault too.

Maybe it’s time to let these wounds breathe and heal, all on their own, alone.

I have no words and that’s new for me because when the world turns away, my words are all I have. Or that was at least how it used to be.

03 August 2019:

Three months since we broke up, one month since we last spoke, over 48 hours since you didn’t return my call… it’s finally starting to feel like this is it.

I was terrified if you picked up it would be another window I wouldn’t be able to close, so I guess thank you.

I’m realizing I never stopped loving you. But I did stop loving how you made me feel. Always on the edge, questioning my every move. Telling me my way of life is nothing but a disgrace, which ultimately made me feel like so was my existence. When you give a certain importance to an individual you are giving them the power to define and validate you. Always on the edge, always scared of when you will finally go back to her. Because in my mind, there was always someone better for you out there. That made me love myself less and less. If I can’t love myself with you, how can I love you?

And I hated living like that. I don’t want to live like that, all I want is to be good enough, the way I am. 

It scares me one day I might have to exist in a world that no longer has you, it’s even more terrifying that it’s inevitable.

Gathering up the courage to tell you how much you mean to me.

This one’s for you Dad, you too Mamma. Love you both, with all my heart. With all the life that’s left. Nothing means more.

When you pulled the plug I couldn’t tell you I wouldn’t know how to go on about my days without you in it.

I’m only ashamed for the parts of my life my mother refused to listen, not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t

I can’t hate her for the strength she didn’t have to hear how a daughter was ruined in her watch, while she was too busy tending for the parts my father never could

I can’t blame her for not being the mother I always wanted, when she had to fill in for the father that was hardly around

I’m mad at her for things she won’t even remember, but how could I be? When she was more than the mother I could’ve wished for, but also, so little of the mother I needed in many times