"And I could feel my mind slipping away from you and needing, craving to kill because that was all I had left. Your memories and the bracelet wasn't enough. Nothing was enough...So I threw myself into the ocean in hopes to get to the bottom. At tha...
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Ivan Aivazovski, The Black Sea at night, 1879.
"Don't wake me up I'm trying to find you Oh, as I walk through You're hiding in the corners of my mind Never fear, I'll be close behind My only love, I follow behind you Won't go without you" – Don't Wake Me Up by Lianne La Havas
I could feel my mom's hand in mine as the warmth of her protection calmed me. We carried through pink and blue clouds, traveling where not once did she let me go. Mom looked back at me and smiled with joy till her gaze caught site of whatever was behind me. I looked back to follow but there was nothing but a black space floating towards us. When I turned back around... my mother was gone. I could feel the child in me begin to sob as fear and abandonment compressed my rib cage. I shut my eyes to stop the tears and covered my face.
"Sssh...ssh. It's okay." A soothing and deep voice hovered over me.
I removed my hands and what appeared in front of me was a ghastly boy with black wavy hair and eyes of emerald oak. Despite he wore a hollow smile, no alarm set off in me.
He continued," It's okay. I'm here. I'm here"
He placed his palm on my cheek and I hiccupped. It was burning hot but I didn't flinch. Suddenly, he morphed from a young boy to a teenager, with tired lines in his face then into a man with the most distant and empty stare. His face was covered in blotches of red. Slowly, his fingers wrapped around my neck like serpents.
"I'll never leave you, I'm here." His voice had changed into something deeper, whimsical, and possessive.
It was haunting yet comforting. It fed my insides and erased the shame. As I was leaning towards him, an obnoxious sound invaded my mind, and she awakes coughing. Veronica looks around, trying to remember where she was before coming to her senses as the noise of the alarm is too much to bear. She slams her finger on the "OFF" button of her cell and sees the date. Biting her lips then proceeding to groan into her palms, Veronica reflects on how her dreams were becoming more vivid as they drew closer to the anniversary. In the recent two years, she's had less dreams about Mom and more about J...
The image of the boy pops up like an advertisement, yet her focus is on the transformation from boy to man. Veronica can't shake off the familiar feelings that used to plague the corners of her mind long ago.
I know he's gone. I know he isbut that feeling I get whenever he's close, that instinct is getting stronger. And she didn't need this shit happening. Definitely didn't need it close to the anniversary of Mom's death.
Veronica looks down at her tremoring hands before grabbing the phone to look at the time. Work was in an hour, and she's already dreading it. Slowly pulling herself out of bed, she walks to the bathroom yawning. Veronica spends a long hot shower punishing herself by remembering her mother's absence. It feels like her life would draw inward on itself, like a blackhole in any moment.
