On Hold

I feel like I’m constantly trying to drive away something that slowly creeps in my soul. Something dark and clingy and repressive. I do not have a name for it. Or I do not choose to identify it for fear that it may grow stronger with its acknowledgement. No, I do not have a name for it; just the instinct to keep it at bay.

Most days, I keep it pacified. By reading books, listening to loud music, being with friends. I bombard myself with all the superficialities the material world can hope to offer. I get to convince myself that the world is a wonderful place. The future is bright. And everything is all right.

But it catches up with me sometimes. When I walk alone. When I lay awake at night. Sometimes when I close my eyes long enough, it corners me - this dark and clingy and repressive shadow. And it badgers me with images I don’t care to see or recall. With memories I’d rather forget but have to keep. With grief I have not given into.

I have a debt to pay with grief. I keep on stalling it, putting it on hold. But it patiently waits for me in quiet moments when I don’t have any other excuse and all I have left is my own soul, tired of moving around in never-ending circles, unable to find an escape.

It bothers me that every morning, I have to concede to myself that these moments of weaknesses come to me as they please. And make me pay up. I’d have run away, if I could. But in truth, I’m much too tired.

There isn’t a day that passes that I wish this weren’t all real. And that when it becomes too painful to bear, I’d be granted the mercy of waking up. To a wonderful world where the future is bright and everything is all right.