melancholia ✔︎

the number

I dial the number and press call.

Why did I press that green shape? I don't know what inner force made me do that. I don't know.

Maybe I want someone to save me, what I can't do for myself.

The number on the yellow sticky-note taped to the fading wooden desk I sit at corresponds exactly to the number I've called: I double checked five times.

Five times precisely. For how embarrassing would it be, to have the wrong number

The phone feels cold against my ear, and I think of all the wires connecting me with the person picking up the phone on the other side. The wires that'll never break, the wires that will always be there.

No matter how far, they stretch far on, gentle waves of black silhouetted against the forever-changing shades of the sky above us.

Something to rely on. Something that won't ever leave, won't ever disappear.

"Hello?" the voice crackled at the end of the line. The connection is fuzzy, and unsure.

"Hello?" I reply, echoing what he just had said.

"Um... Hi?" the male voice says.

"This is just getting awkward," I shuffle my feet around beneath the desk on the black carpet awkwardly.

"I know. So, what do you have to say?" he sounds slightly annoyed.

"Um, nothing?"I put down the receiver and sighed. No matter how often I picked up that very same phone, and dialled the exact same number, I couldn't tell them.

I. Could. Not. Tell. Them.

I can't them the ugly secrets I hid beneath the surface. I couldn't.

I can't tell them what was going on, how everything was crap, and the sudden thoughts that started to flow through my head recently.

But I can't keep pretending. Pretending that I'm fine. Because I'm not.

There was so much things I should really explain, but I can't. I really can't explain all the things I ought to, and that sometimes make me guilty for all I feel, and all I've done.

The phone stares back up at me, compelling me to try again.

No. No. No.

I pick it up.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can't. I can't. I can.

I dial that number I know by heart, the one the school counsellor gave to me. And even though I know it by heart, I feel like I still need that sticky-note that the counsellor gave to me, crinkled and dirty.

I promise myself I wouldn't call it, but I've been feeling like I need someone to talk to.

Because I'm trying to find some reason, any reason, to live.