sombre

heather eulogies

10:55 AM — friday september 17th

the room is too small, too tight, pressing in from all sides like the walls are breathing, like they know. i can’t escape, but where would i go? outside, the leaves are beginning to turn, that strange time in mid-september when everything starts to decay, when the green fades into that sickly yellow-brown. i watch from the window, my breath fogging up the glass, fingers tracing patterns that don’t make sense.

she’s here, but she’s not. a ghost in the corner, lingering in the shadows. her voice is soft, almost gentle, but there’s something underneath, something sharp. she talks to me about love, about what it should be, what it never was. i try to listen, but her words twist and tangle in my mind, like threads knotted together, impossible to unravel. i think about what it means to love, what it means to be loved, and i’m not sure i know anymore.

there’s a girl, a version of me that i remember, but she’s far away now, blurred at the edges like an old photograph left out in the sun. she used to believe in things—fairytales, happily ever afters, that love could save you from the darkness. now, she’s just a whisper, a memory of something that never really was. i try to reach her, but she slips through my fingers, dissolving like smoke.

i close my eyes, and the world inside is different, softer, safer. here, i can be anyone, anything. here, the leaves don’t die, they stay green forever, the sun never sets. she’s with me here, but she’s different, too. kinder, warmer. she holds my hand, and i don’t flinch. we walk together through fields that never end, under a sky that never darkens. but i know it’s not real. i know that when i open my eyes, the walls will be closing in again, the shadows will be waiting.

there’s a weight in my chest, heavy and cold, and it’s getting harder to breathe. the world outside the window is turning gray, the colors bleeding away like ink in water. i think about love, about what it does, what it takes, and i wonder if it’s worth it, if it ever was. her voice echoes in my mind, soft and sharp at the same time, telling me things i don’t want to hear, things i can’t ignore.

the leaves outside are almost gone now, the trees bare and skeletal against the dull sky. it’s mid-september, but it feels like winter already. i don’t know what to believe anymore, what’s real and what’s just another dream, another daydream gone wrong. i don’t know where i end and the shadows begin.

but maybe it doesn’t matter. maybe i’m just a girl in a room that’s too small, with a mind that’s too loud, trying to figure out what it means to love, to be loved, in a world that’s too big, too bright, too much. and maybe that’s all there is.