When love is reciprocated, it is a happiness shared by two. When it isn’t, it can be the loneliest existence in the world.

But lonely as that may be, life must go on.

No more. Enough. She’s done.
She should’ve known better;
but in a moment of insanity,
she didn’t.

She let emotions take control.
A moment of insanity.
A moment of weakness.
She let him in.

Like a burglar climbing in,
through a broken window.
Or one accidentally left open.
She let him in.

Like the burglar,
he stole everything.
She’s done. Enough.
It needs to stop. Now.

We are all afraid -
of the dark,
of being alone,
abandoned and forgotten.
Of our mortality -
and through it all,
she knows she has to
suffer through the silence.
Be strong, not waver.
She has to pick up the pieces after all.
But who is there to pick those pieces
when she is the one needing to be put back
together again?

It all seems so close, everything within her grasp. But she can’t help but stop to wonder: is this the life she wants?

Is she happy, for all the sacrifices she has made, to get to the here and now? She thinks she loves this place, but is this all there is? Is this now going to be her life, the place she works and play, live and die?

What is love, she doesn’t know. And she probably will never get to know. So how can she know that this life she leads is one she loves? This place she’s at, is one she loves? The one she wants?

Years later, she did something she never thought she’d be able to do again. She sat down in front of the computer, open up the folder where all her unifinished stories sit; collecting dust, never to see the light of day. She took a deep breath, and cliked on one. The first one that appeared on top of the list.

One that she’d worked out the plot for when it came to her in a dream. A nightmarish world – a world devoid of hope, but also about finding that hope again. With a deep breath, she thinks maybe….

Maybe she can write again; pick up the pen metaphorically.

All signs point to futility;
for her to stop -
the madness, the whimsy.
But she charges on still,
headlong.
Like she’s unable to stop

When depression returns with a vengence, sometimes the only thing one can do is sit back and let it happen. Is that complacency, or the lack of fighting spirit only shows the level of hell one has sank to? You try to do the things you normally resort to when you’re faced with the monster that intends to drag you back to the dark ether it came from: you write and you write. But the more you write, the more empty everything becomes.

You shun company of what little friends you already have, in the hopes that you won’t have to burden them with your emotional turmoil. Because at the end of the day, your confidence in them is lacking. In yourself, you never thought you could provide them with much, because in the end, as you’ve learn again and again, people leave. People stop talking to you for their own little reasons, stop being a friend and you no longer want to be the one left behind. Still wondering. Emotions fade, and sometimes the silence gets so loud that you realise you’re the only one left in the room.

You worry another bout of social phobia will hit, like it did the last time, years ago. You become incapacitated, a prisoner in your own home. Your own mental state. But the panic attacks were so severe that you realise there was nothing you could do other than to let it overwhelm you, let it pass. As your breaths return to normal, your heartbeat slows down.

And the tears stop. Not because you’re well, but because you have nothing left inside of you to cry over anymore.

Caleb’s Hope is seeking for more volunteers. See here for more information.

Go here for a post about Caleb’s Hope, and what the organisation is currently up to.

What is his story, she wonders. He saunters into my garden like he owns the place, finds a spot and conveniently parks himself there for the rest of the afternoon. My human indulges him by feeding him food. She better not let him into the house though – that is still my territory. I’ll be damned if I let another claim what is rightfully mine.