Moving on has never been an issue for me. Never really had. I’m a pragmatic person and I hate clutter. Surviving, I’ve managed to devise my own system which I religiously follow to avoid feeling of dislocation. Its either I throw it away completely or I just sweep it under the rug, for my future masochistic pleasures. Like Isadora Wing, I believe that there is a man under my bed. The faceless man who was made of 22 years worth of dust, fallen hairs, nail clipping-undisturbed.
And so does the seven years worth of gifts, letters, trinkets, and everything else in between that had passed from Faye's hands to mine. All was kept in the wooden rice wine box with gray ropes for handle, and shoved under the old clothes that had shrunk and supposed to be given to someone else who could put it to good use.
I realized that I should've thrown all of those a couple of years ago, when being strong actually IS false bravado. But now I had to let out the fear. The fear to touch the kept mementos from a lover that had long since flitted away. I fear to lay my hands on reams of letters bound by a single, think rubber. I fear that should the rubber snap, then I would snap too then each letter and characters written in the fancy papers would float and would seep their ways into my pores. I fear that my skin hadn’t toughen up with age, and that layers of skin are actually peeling off me, one day at a time. More easier to penetrate. More susceptible to pain.
I needed the space badly but I’m afraid that if I touch everything that she had left behind, her presence would envelope the four-walled sanctuary that I’d forcefully rid of her memories. If that happens, I would wind up with lesser space than I intended to, which could suffocate me in the process.
So much fear. So much fear. Too little progress.
Ending this on a comical note, I’m alone. Single and alone.
