Storms Are Named After People

“Despite everything, it’s still you.”

The world always seemed lackluster. Mindless advertisements blended in with the backwaters of scams. School was tuned to wring the breath out of you, cigarettes deceived you into thinking you were getting your breath back. Admittedly I’m guilty of the game, nonchalance has always hardwired into my circuitry knowing it’d all be the same regardless of the sun taking its shifts. Until the sun changed.

You were the breath of fresh air among smog ridden streets; the dew drops that taste sweet in the mornings. You were the hot cup of coffee to treat an agonising headache and the soft fur blanket on a freezing night. A textbook muse, with a laugh that everyone adored. You cared for me like a wounded animal, against all odds. In retrospect, I was an arrogant child with entitlement that was beyond measure. You always saw beyond everything, no one was just their skin, you’d say, they all have bones that remember and muscles that ache. I hadn’t known gratitude until you made me write a thank you note to my aunt.

I let my guard down. The sun felt warm on my skin rather than hot and overwhelming like the harsh stage lights. The downpour felt fresh, soothing, compared to the acid rain that always seemed to leave me with a week-long cough. I stared at your eyes longer than I should have. Your hair never had a bad day, your hands always warm to the touch. You always carried your weight on one leg and covered your mouth when you laughed.

The fact that you were gone turned into a matter of belief for me, and I chose against it. I could feel the bitter wretchedness creeping back into my being. Circling around my lungs and flooding my heart. Like some child watering a plant to the point of suffocation, like some mother holding a glass so tight and secure it shatters. Vices were the only logical step to take. I rotted in your memories, using up a little bit of them each time. Desperately clinging onto what was left, making up whatever wasn’t.

I read somewhere that grief was just love persevering, but if it was love that had persevered I believe that I’d have been fine by now. It’s the selfishness that perseveres. The sour, horrible ache that eats you from the inside out. Claw marks on everything you’ve ever loved. I pour my love into other people, falling prey to their every word, a sense of willing servitude. But my yearning? It’s ugly, a toddler gnawing at things that should’ve never gotten in their hands. A deluded sense of entitlement, “I’ve loved it, I’ve cared for it, it’s mine now.” My selfishness is mine, not my love. And before you can make that realisation, all your love morphs into the same harrowing selfishness.

“Despite everything, it’s still you.”