A winter morning
I left the houselike I was out of my mind
The air was sharp
My body wanted something from me
A heroic decision
I took a newspaper and a pen
Found a cheap apartment
Rented it for three months
Placed the furniture
I don't want to see you again
A hard night came and I
feel unowned
I want to go back
to apologize
But I'm ashamed to tell you
how half I am without you
You can't ruin a life like this
I want to go back
to apologize
But what runs away keeps chasing me
A winter morning
I left the houselike I was out of my mind
The air was sharp
My body wanted something from me
A heroic decision
~~
After praying to God that we would win the battle, after there had already been a we inside me, I've been finding myself running from Rowan since yesterday. This isn't one of my small, quiet escapes. This is something else.
My soul only softens into peace when he's close, and until yesterday, a familiar unrest couldn't overpower that peace. Until yesterday.
My soul's escape fails. But I succeed at my new escape, the one I perform with my body. Even if it has only been hours.
Last night, when evening was pregnant with night, someone knocked on my door and I didn't even rise from where I sat. My brain sent tangled signals. One part of me insisted it couldn't be him; the other mocked my mind for its stupidity, asking who else it could possibly be.
Before the lump could settle in my throat, I drank water and wished whoever stood outside would leave.
I belong to loneliness.To being alone.
Then I heard a low voice. A voice no one else could have heard.
"Lena… are you not home?"
It was a question pushed into meaninglessness by hopelessness.
Take the hopelessness out of your voice. I am nothing to you.
The irrational thoughts in my mind cannot have reached yours. It's all my paranoia.
And most of all, don't make me feel as if I'm worth something.
I can live on my own. In my cocoon. Even if I stepped down from that roof, there can't be more.
Did you step down from that roof to live inside your cocoon? Hadn't you been in it already? Until that moment.
A few seconds later, the sound of his steps going down the stairs echoed in the corridor. The breath I pulled into myself filled my ribcage like a blade. Will I be like this without Rowan? He is only someone I've known for a few weeks.
Known?
Then why do I feel this way? What I feel has no value. What matters is what Rowan feels.
That is exactly why you should stay away.
I should stay away from him.
My mental escape from Rowan has existed since the first day I saw him. But every time I found him in front of me, my mental escapes ended. And when I heard the piano, I didn't need to escape at all.
The day I took shelter in Rowan, the day I went against what I had asked God for, I'm sure God called me a hypocrite and a coward.
My God, you created me.You gave my soul its shape.
I am outside. And since the moment I decided I would fill my life on my own, ideas have been catching on my mind like burrs.
The melodies flowing through my headphones pull me toward thinking of Rowan, because I'm listening to a song I love. The thought of associating something I love with Rowan frightens my mind.
My soul doesn't care.
The Greek song manages to touch my heart, the way Rowan can touch me without even knowing. And it brings back the melodies he sent to me through his piano. One beloved thing triggers another beloved thing. Greek notes merge with Rowan's music.
I was never one of those people who disliked classical music. I listened when my soul needed stillness, or the opposite, a scream. Sometimes my tears made me weaker. Sometimes the emptiness in my mind would leave me at the edge of peace with those quiet melodies.
But since Rowan's music reached me, there has been no definition of classical music for me. Something in my mind and soul changed. I catch myself falling into Rowan-thoughts again and I stop.
My hand goes to the paper and pen in my bag. Quickly, I write the sentence in my head. I glance at the paper and carve the words into my mind.
I keep walking. My headphones are still on. The music in my ears protects me from people.
From crowds.From arrogance.From artificiality.
As thoughts begin to feel heavy, I twist my face.
What is my problem?
The roaring gray clouds warn me. The roads I take to escape my inner unrest turn their backs on me. The sky sends warnings straight into my mind. I change direction.
I don't have an umbrella.
I laugh.
I've never had an umbrella.
A few steps later, the world gives itself to cool drops. Tap, tap, tap. The taps multiply into a number I can't count, and I quicken my pace. At least I'm not far from home.
I can't go far from anywhere. Even if I leave, it won't be far. Just a step closer. Close enough that no one will notice.
I will do the unexpected.
My steps wander through streets that had been foreign weeks ago and are now beginning to feel familiar.
When I reach my street, the rain thickens. I don't avoid getting soaked. Even if the drops cling to my hair and make my head heavy, I feel cleansed. The cold air slipping inside me keeps me alive.
People have vanished from the streets, fleeing into concrete buildings.
My steps slow the moment I enter. I want to feel the rain more, while I still can. I open my palms to the sky, close my eyes, and turn between the piles of concrete.
This is what it means to say: I am alive.
Despite everything and everyone becoming synthetic, robotic.
It means the world is still breathing.
It means the moon will bring me to itself in a few days.
As that thought passes through my mind, I open my eyes. Without meaning to, I turn my head toward the apartment building and study how it looks in the rain. It's as if the rain had washed all its color away, and only the pink was left standing.
The odd one out.
The one that belonged to Rowan.
The white building tolerated only one color that wasn't itself.
Pink.
The pink floor was Rowan's.
It was strange.
That difference was the greatest reason I had climbed that building's roof.
The pink wasn't spread neatly, as if someone had decided to change a color and started with excitement, then realized starting from the fourth floor was ridiculous and abandoned the work halfway through. It could have been funny, if you thought about it long enough. But there had to be a reason for that color, for its existence among all that white.
Everything has a reason. Even this.
As I sink into studying the building, a silhouette lands in my vision and I yank my gaze away immediately. I run, drenched. When I reach the entrance, I spot cats huddled under the sheltered part of the doorway. A bowl beside them is filled with fish bones.
"Looks like it's a good day for you," I mutter as I step inside.
I take the stairs two at a time, wanting only to get into my apartment. But when I reach Rowan's floor, my speed dies. I freeze.
And what fills my mind more than surprise is anger.
I don't look at his door. I pass it. I climb the last stairs in small steps. The moment I place my final foot on my own floor, I feel fingers close around my arm, and I hold my breath.
I find my eyes closing for a few seconds.
When I open them and turn, his fingers are still wrapped around my arm. My pulse rises between my breasts as if trying to climb out of my body. The moment my eyes collide with his brown-that-nearly-turns-black, my mind speaks for me.
Please. Don't come. Don't step toward me.
Let me be mistaken.
Be nothing more than an excuse, a tool for my mind's hunger for emotion.
Don't be real.
My soul fails to pull away from Rowan's eyes. As if I'm about to say, Let go of my arm.
Nothing moves.
My tongue is sealed.
Rowan takes a step toward me. My mind hates it. My soul is already ready to strike.
With Rowan, time moves slower. Time is gentler than it has ever been. As if it says: let your hours become minutes, your minutes become seconds. I allow it. Because for the first time, time isn't cruel to me.
And it drags me into a feeling I can't name.
"Lena."
My God, his voice. The way my name disappears inside the tone of it. The letters that make up my name are so lucky. My name, falling from his mouth, is worthy of being spoken for the first time.
I draw a deep breath and turn fully toward him. My soul and mind are at war.
In Rowan's eyes, I can tell time has slowed. Like an impossibility offering me a possibility. For the first time, I am grateful for time.
"You're very brave."
My eyes take his mouth as their target. For a few seconds, I try to grasp that it was him who said those two words, and that they were said about me.
Was I?
I can't pull my gaze away from his lips. It moves between his eyes and his mouth. This time I want to witness the words that will come next, as if I haven't already been witnessing them all along.
Brave.
I didn't expect it.
I didn't hope for it.
Rowan was already unexpected. My moments with Rowan are full of being stunned by the unexpected. I don't know whether I'm standing in the middle of reality or at the edge of a dream.
I hate dreams as much as I hate reality.
Reality is a knot of pain with spring flowers scattered through it. Those flowers will wilt. The knot will roll, growing, grinding the wilted petals into dust. Tiny particles you can't even distinguish will perch on your soul and call themselves hope.
And inside all that pain, those particles will exhaust you even more.
Dreams are a delusion, hiding the barbed wire under the soft soil you walk on. While you believe each step on the soft earth is peace, peace will turn to blood when the hidden barbs pierce your soul.
So where am I now?
In reality?
At the edge of a dream?
Which would I choose?
Which one hurts more?
Which one bleeds more?
Which one pushes a person closer to death?
The poison invading my cells, the inner confusion, makes me approach Rowan with anger.
"I'm not brave."
My words feel insufficient.
"I'm nothing."
I yank my arm out of his fingers. Without daring to look at his face again, I turn and try to fit the key into the lock.
His presence could dry the poison up, and yet I won't allow it.
My mind poisons my soul.
My mind won't let me.
The ache creeping from my chest to my throat, thickening my breath, won't let me.
And yet it feels as if one touch would undo it all.
I find myself dragging myself toward evil. Toward my own soul.
As long as I can still sense him behind me, my heart tightens.
He doesn't leave.
Leave.
I struggle not to surrender to the eyes I know are watching me.
What if I get worse, with him? What if the happiness settling into my heart triggers everything? If I am truly nothing, and I share the idea of everything with someone…
I get angry with myself.
I shouldn't reflect my anger onto him. I don't want him to breathe my mind's poison.
I want to apologize.
But my hysterical state makes me slam the door shut.
I collapse against the cold behind me, sinking to the floor. Everything is ice-cold, but my heart is still warm.
Rowan's presence is still warm.
My breaths are under the rule of the lump in my throat. They don't reach my soul. It's as if I'm turning back into who I was before I ever heard the music Rowan sent me.
My nose stings. My cheeks grow wet, as if an invisible hand is scattering the wetness across my soul.
It burns my soul alive.
My soul is burning, blazing.
My tears don't extinguish the fire. They feed it.
A pained groan rises from my throat. A pitiful sound. My soul rolls deeper into the sorrow it lives inside. I rise unwillingly. I have to.
I bend myself toward the bathroom. My soul's ache has been flung across my body. As I pass the sink where Rowan had washed my face with such tenderness, I shake.
While trying to get away from Rowan, it's as if the poison that was fading comes alive again.
The possibilities scare my soul.
My heart fills with insane maybes.
Because Rowan exists now. The one who began to dry the poison, and the one who seems to awaken it too.
No. The guilty one is me.
I'm the one who awakens it, the one who runs.
The full-length mirror reflects my body back into my mind. With the heaviness of my soaked clothes, I move closer.
He is the moon.
I am a starfish.
A pitiful starfish with a lethal soul.
Thoughts stolen into my mind years ago find their place inside my soul again, and my body begins to tremble. I know I need to come back to myself.
As Rowan-thoughts gather at the edge of my mind, my mind fights against them.
Woman.
I step away from the mirror.
Wave.
I place myself beneath running water.
Cold.
I peel off my soaked clothes one by one.
Blood.
My tears surrender to the water.
Ache.
As earlier versions of my life pass through my mind's sieve, I straighten my body under the stream. I inhale deeply. My lungs feel clearer, and without noticing, my mind pushes me back toward Rowan.
I have to be strong. I have to honor the fact that I stepped down from that roof. I have to live.
Since I saw those brown eyes that verge on black, I've been stronger. More alive with the melodies that reached me. Running from him, fencing off every beautiful possibility with barbed wire, only wounds my soul and drags my thoughts toward the mouth of a bottomless darkness.
I am strong. And I will stay strong. With Rowan or without him.
Even if Rowan struck the spark of this strength, its essence is in me.
I will make this choice.
Because the strength is mine.
As the strength in my soul becomes a thrumming surge inside my ribcage, I smile with my eyes closed.
I already know what I've chosen.
●
As my body rinses and my mind clears in the bathroom, my soul finally breathes, and my ears begin to search for a familiar sound.
The piano is missing.
Rowan's presence is silent.
My soul doesn't break because I didn't listen to his last notes. Because the strength is with me now. As long as my soul carries this strength against my mind, I will live. Without doubt. With peace.
I slip my robe back on when the doorbell rings, even though I was about to dress. If it's a stranger, I can hide behind the robe.
When I open the door, the person I see makes it easy to open it without shame.
Rowan is here.
Once again I'm caught in those eyes that nearly turn black, and time loses its flow again. Everything is clearer than the day we sat on the stairs. My heart is greedier with curiosity, my eyes bolder.
And there is something more than that day.
The strength I feel inside me.
I want to swim inside the clarity this strength has granted me. I want the waves I feel throughout my body to touch my soul like cool water.
I deserve it.
Looking into his eyes, I find myself wanting to deserve him too. I want to deserve Rowan. But first I need to know whether he wants me at all. And can the gaze standing in front of me, the gaze I can't place on any scale, help me?
I don't know.
It was a winter morning, once. Under the pressure of my mind, at a time when my soul would push my body into emptiness. My body demanded a heroic decision from me.
And this is a winter morning too.
Rowan's eyes work their way into my soul, my breaths knotting sweetness at my throat and filling me with momentum.
This time, my soul demands a heroic decision from me.