The Day It Struck Me

Sitting on the barren concrete stairs of my office, I grabbed the menthol cigarettes wrapped in crisp white paper and inhaled deeply as the flickering light shrivelled its edge. I inhaled the fume, deeply as I any cowboy would, wondering how on earth I got addicted to these poison sticks 10 years ago. They taste ugly, smell foul and leave a nauseating after taste. I wrestled myself to quit many months ago, and did so for a few weeks, even months. But at times like these, my body craves for nicotine, thinking it could stuff the sense of void that sometimes life leaves you with. But unlike then, this time a big part of me realized that all this is done in vain. How much nicotine would you need to get rid of an emptiness the size of your chest? How many glasses of alcohol and caffeine drinks do you have to pump into your system to numb the sharp, throbbing pain that pulsates through your body, the same pain you feel when iodine is violently splashed on an open wound?

I know, I know, it's not the end of the world. It really isn't. I will continue to live my life, day after day, the same way I have decided to live it, the same way that life is presented to me. And the wound will heal with time, they say. But scar are scars, and I can't deny this one will leave a big nasty one. To think of it, I am at the crossroads. I can either embark on a so-called journey to search for answers, for one's identity, to discover pure joy in selflessness, all of those kinds of experience that have been made into betselling self-empowerment books. But I could also choose to stand still and learn to accept to live with the pain like car crash survivors who had to struggle with physical pain inflicted by the wounds of their accident.

At least I am aware of my options. I can't think right now, my mind is clouded by despair. Today I felt a big chunk of me was ripped away, vilently and without any mercy. The two lines you wrote in your last email sawed my limbs off and left me staring blank for the rest of the day, and your poems did the rest. I heard the sound of a rope torn apart somewhere in the distance that morning. You decided to cut the tie that bound our two souls, in your own right. I called your name out, at first a whisper, and later, a silent scream. But you never came. And by the end of my third cigarette, I realised that I may have lost the best thing I never had.

I understand your decision, but I refuse to accept it.

Come back to me.