Day 196: One

You are born with one body, with one brain, with one heart. You will never be able to escape the way you look, the way you think, the way you feel. And whatever happens in your life, you are stuck with it forever. There is no reset button. This isn’t an exam where you can try to raise your grade next time. It’s not a football game where you get another chance next week. You are enslaved to a single human experience, and that is your own.

Day 187: Haunted

I can usually find her somewhere if I look for her: frolicking in the backyard chasing a butterfly she has no hope of catching, rushing to the kitchen to wave her stick figure drawings too close to the stove flame I’m cooking over, chattering to herself as she makes pretend conversation among her stuffed animals. Other days I hear the thump of her heartbeat, the whisper of her breath, or the empty room at the end of the hallway, filled with a silence that screams like a siren.

This is the story of how I’m haunted by a girl who was never born.

Day 149: Without

She always had to leave her heart behind when entering into interactions with Jessa, for regardless of if she took her heart with or not, she would always leave without it.

Day 143: Beating

The shame was beating all the way up from heart into my face.

Day 127: Beat

I could feel my chest rushing in and out with anxiety, and my heart was racing out a beat fast enough to set the pace for a high-energy heavy metal song.

Day 126: Lie

I’ve lived with a lie in my heart
Since the day I never let go.
I’ve lived a lie since the day you went
And I was left here all alone.

Day 120: Speedometer

Panic had taken the wheel, and the speedometer on my heart was dangerously high.

Day 105: Tired

I was so tired, it felt like my brain was spinning inside my head. I felt like I was constantly jerking awake, even though I’d never stopped being conscious, and every sound seemed to wake me up, no matter how few seconds they were apart. Each blast of noise was a knife through my brain, a shock in my heart and stomach, a sudden stab in my spine.

Day 94: Untouched

As soon as I got home, I ran to the shower, still bawling my eyes out. Tap water joined the stream of tears, spit, and snot running down my face, but while my skin was washed clean, my aching heart stayed untouched.

Day 64: Eyes

I could see it in her face: her brain knew it. Her heart didn’t. Her mouth, her tongue, her expression, they all knew. But not her eyes. Her eyes, the window to her soul, her heart, were oblivious to the devastation.