to whom it may concern;

lxiii. { s t o r y }

❛ voyage ❜
— originally written: april 5, 2020
— published: may 2, 2020

i.

your vision basks in an otherworldly haze, far-off pools of murky colours drowning in swirls of neutrality. a palette of formless figures cloaks the entirety of your sight and you struggle to take it in, because it's all disorienting and too much at once.

you close your eyes shut, hoping that when you blink them open again, the world would be back in its orderly place. but it isn't.

ii.

and the world reels, for crying out loud. it crashes and gives way beneath your feet, breaking all apart before you. shattered light spreads from the fragmented skies, held together only by solar brilliance, but even that ceases to exist.

iii.

dancing through the dark-drenched emptiness now, no other sight comes to consume you. weightless in the feel of midnight skies, stumbling and faltering in your flight. all hearing is lost on you the same way your vision is, and you're not quite sure whether that's meant to serve as a comfort or not.

iv.

your hands reach out every so often, seeking the closest thing to 'steady' in this fluid bubble of black. but it's always just thin air that you end up catching without fail, slipping through your fingers like boundless time.

v.

somewhere in the distance, you think you hear a voice. perhaps it belongs to you, perhaps it does not; you find yourself unable to distinguish the blurs of discordant yelling from the drone of whispers that tug at your consciousness. you think you hear someone ask, are you okay? and a voice respond of course, i am, but the anguish is undeniable.

you swim in the unfamiliarity of familiar tones, knowing not how much deeper you could possibly go.

vi.

in the midst of this void's frigid cold, memories begin to arise, and whatever words you dare utter out loud are all but silenced.

you weave through the lies and truths of your upbringing: witnessing the nights you've won against your demons, learning from the days you've lost against the world as if for the first time all over again.

vii.

rooted to the catacombs of grays and whites, you're taken back to the days you were forced to learn the hard way that there are some people whose love is not worth chasing after. still, there are others whose eyes will forever cradle a reflection of the saviour you saw in them.

family and friends alike greet you, their faces awash in normalcy, but the only smile you have left to offer doesn't feel nearly as sincere as your normal ones do.

viii.

time, you learn, is of immeasurable value. in here, there's none of that, so your best guess is that hours have since passed when you finally come to a stop somewhere the air feels a little less heavy than it did prior. warmth begins to permeate through the terrifying numbness—not unlike the dawning of a new day.

ix.

a cacophony of doubts—the 'what if's and 'you're no good for this'—accompany the heartbeat you hear raging in your ears, illuminating your sealed-off past and bringing all your insecurities to light.

yet louder than all else still is a whisper of reassurance, spoken in the voice of a friend who has long since come into your life and gone. it's only when cool liquid grazes the tip of your chin that you realize you've been crying.

x.

fear is the electricity that keeps your heart both going and wavering at once, relentless in its cruel advances. it defiles the wishes you harbor, abandoning what little forethought you once had of moving onward in spite of it.

but you don't let the fear consume you—no regrets, you say all the same, and it feels like you've been released of all your restraints at last.

xi.

hope flickers atop your palms where they linger, hesitant, by your side. it resonates from somewhere inside of you that you can't pinpoint just yet, gently caressing the surfaces of you that run cracked, broken.

you muster the most of your blind and wild grace (which is to say, the lack thereof) to reach out for just one final time, expecting no more than another empty-handed expedition. and yet you've never been more ecstatic to be proven wrong.

xii.

the new world is drenched in color, that of multitudes of shades and hues, vivid in every respect. life blossoms in the same breath as love does. love for the family and friends who come to a stand beside you, reassuring. love for yourself who's gone through so much and yet has not once lost their humanity, has not once let their newfound strength overpower their heart.

it's not the most perfect life, you know, but it's enough, and you know there's more to this beautiful world you've yet to truly discover. after all, the darkest hour is just before the dawn.. and the dawn has only just begun.