indig0hues

[indig0hues]

"i can not be trustid"

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I found a note, written years ago, yesterday.

A recipe book, a family heirloom. Filled with all sorts of scientific confectionaries like pastries and cakes, but also those savoury, mouthwatering dishes, only gracing the table on special occasions. Christmas and Thanksgiving. However upon further inspection, tucked between pages, a jotted down phrase. A real estate notepad and shaky handwriting- young handwriting.

“I can not be trustid”

That crucial word spelled incorrectly, God, I was a kid. I was so little. I was so… And then my mothers laugh shakes me out of a waking spiral. She says, “Child, do not stir. We don’t even remember what the context is, what the meaning of it is”. I throw the note away, and feign a light hearted scoff, pretending I thought no more of it. But I fear since its appearance in my life, I cannot grapple with the insurmountable number of questions this note has evoked inside me.

At what time, in what moment, did I decide I wasn’t worthy of the trust of another? As a youngster I lied lavishly, and this I recall, though, I only spread falsities about myself. A hail-mary, a last straw, an exercise to potentially gain a connection with someone. I did not know, at this time of course, that foundations of friendships built upon lies seldom last longer than a weekend.

But in the end, all I really want to know: Who made me believe I wasn’t to be trusted? This is not a conclusion any child should come to. Why did I come to this conclusion? What (or who) possessed me to write that note, that little phrase? Was it a reinforcement, possibly a punishment to make me remember? Who placed that note, when was that note placed? Why in that particular spot, in between sticky, yellowed pages, lost to time up until it was found?

I guess I’ll never know.

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thank you for reading my little blurb about my childhood

-abb3y

[indig0hues]

"the wanting"

TW- su*c*de and death mentioned

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“i want to be alive”, i said

spit circulating , lip corners salivating

“i want to get older,” i cried

tears welling, telling, asking

“can i, will i, may i, live again?”

begging now, the clock tick ticks

the spit burns past my lips, it rips

skin opens, bruising, gashing, bleeding:

“I’M SORRY I TRIED TO DIE”

but Death doth not care

for tired whimpers of plastic regret, no

Death doth not care 

for glimmering hope, drastic, and pulse forgets

how to pump. pull. swim. begin. 

“how do i try again?”

“i want to be alive”, i gurgle, i groan

underwater drowning, bubbles blown crowning

tops of heads, placing dreams upon

every sleepy little victim:

age 10, 11, 12 and so on,

so small i was, fear turns to fawn

i look past to those little girls

before they knew “person” made thoughts not twirl

pearlescent, and “person” was decadent and

maybe, just maybe, life is not all “i”

maybe life is not all iron

maybe life is not a lie, or hard or just myself

maybe this was the point all along?

“i want to be alive” i spoke

swallowing hard truths, digesting a soft false

if this is all i’m meant to be…

if drinks and chit-chat

if trinkets and doo-dads

to collect on my shelf

who am i, but myself?

and this body- whether help

or hinder or carry

this is all i need. 

“i want to be alive!” i scream

sour sheets and sheep bleat

“baaAahh, no you don’t” but i will not

listen nor linger nor scornfully shake. 

because i WANT to be alive

and alive means to break

breaking out, breaking in

here, i’ll break it down for you:

i will be alive. 

and there is nothing you can do. 

---

thank you for reading. I pray the same desire to live finds you one day -abb3y

[indig0hues]

"i stand here naked"

TW- su*c*de as an overarching theme, mentions an unhealthy relationship with food.

reader discretion advised?

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I stand here naked, alone and afraid. Atop a bridge on the outskirts, a place with minimal cars and a long drop down. My body is bare, my perception is scattered, and dusk settles beyond the river. 

The wind drags a cool caress through my hair, twirling it in front of my face, almost blowing me towards the dark serenity of the rocky water beneath- if it weren’t for my hands white-knuckled and holding a thin metal beam on the other side of me. I’m balanced on the smidge of overhanging concrete outward from the highway, outside the protective barriers that keep cars from swerving. I am facing a fate I am determined to create for myself, a fate long thought of in passing, but only tonight coming into actualization.

Who will find me? What are the consequences? How did I get to this place? All the unanswerable questions taking to air, trains derailed off their tracks. Although, my internal interrogation does me no good now, for I have filled out the forms and put my signature on the dotted line. 

There is no going back.

I see the distant approach of headlights and crouch, praying my shopping bag of folded clothes is not spotted. Reasoning for many days and nights about leaving a note- I rationalised that it wasn’t worth the effort. My last written words would eventually come as a “gone for a walk, see you!” note on my mother and I’s chalkboard. I figured I needed to say something to her, I needed her to know her efforts were not in vain. 

The lights grew nearer and nearer, the car almost blinding me, and I felt the rumbling concrete as it passed. The squeaky tires become distant, and once I’m sure I am out of eyeshot in the expanding night, I rise to my feet once again.

---

I stand here naked, warm air begins to turn cool. While minutes pass beneath my bare feet, while rushing water flows far under, I cannot help but recall a tale I was told in my younger years.

As an infant, I seldom laughed or cried, mostly just sleeping until it was time to be fed. My mother worried about my well-being, taking me to doctors and asking “What is wrong? What is wrong with my baby?” She was erratic, probably suffering from some sort of postpartum. No one knew what the problem was, never mind how to solve it. Months went by, and it wasn’t until almost a full year after I was born that I offered my first laugh. 

My mother tells this story always with a smile on her face, I anticipate because nothing incredibly dire followed. One day, according to her, I was playing with a toy and just giggled to myself, and when she heard me from the other side of the room she “knew that I would be okay in life”.

But, that story is just that, a story. Though no developmental deficiencies followed this incident, I remember it now. I think back, wondering if my underdeveloped, untarnished infant brain knew something was fundamentally wrong with me. If I was acquainted with the knowledge about my future and aware of all the hardships and calamities I was to experience.

“I couldn’t have known, I couldn’t have known…” I trail off, speaking to no one, hearing only my shaking voice and the rushing river.

---

I stand here naked, vulnerable in my bare skin. Days ago, when I finally decided that this was the end, I was so concerned about what I would wear. A silly thought, but one all-encompassing nonetheless. I wanted to wear my favourite dress, but knew it would become stained and ripped and forever ruined. I couldn’t bear it, for I wanted to be buried in it. 

 Nudity, in my life, has always been a burden. Whether changing into gym clothes before class or getting dressed after showering, I always hated seeing my stripped body. My skin is too tight, my bones are too loose. Arms drape too long by my sides, and legs are not long enough to pick up the slack. I am an evolutionary mistake, an ape that neglected the final phases of development. 

“You cannot hate what was created by me, for you,” my mother would quote. Always a firm believer in kindness over truth, she never understood what it was like to hate yourself to the point of destruction. She’ll never understand why I’m here, but I think I’m content with that. How could she understand that the hatred of my form is a fault to only her.

The woman who prides herself on her understanding and warmth towards all creatures, is the same who told me over and over again that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. And she, the same woman again, asks me why I am never hungry, why I look so ghastly and pale, why I faint at the thought of a roast beef and mashed potato dinner.

I know now, that the only way to become comfortable with my body was to die in it, and only it. 

---

I stand here naked, and I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Is it peace? Is it serenity? Maybe it is just quiet, a quiet mind and a quiet soul.

When I was seventeen, some of my old friends and I drove to the ocean. About a seven hour drive from our hometown, we packed up the car and hit the highway. I remember the journey being just on the thin line between bearable and unbearable, a bunch of teenagers in a beat down, blue minivan is not going to be the most enjoyable experience. Just the same, it was beautiful to be surrounded by that much excitement and anticipation. 

The ocean was incredible, the beach was one of rocks and stones. Some of us spent the day tanning, some swimming. I, however, sat by the tide and watched. Thinking of nothing in particular, speaking only to respond to an occasional, “you good?”. I had never seen the ocean before, only in documentaries and photos posted to social media. I was infatuated by it. 

It was so large, and I am so small. I couldn’t comprehend the vastness and depth of it. I still cannot. When all of this is over, I hope they scatter my ashes in the tides of that very same ocean.

But that day, like all of them, ended. The sun sank lower and lower beyond the horizon, everyone packed up their towels and beach bags. I couldn't bear to leave, if I am being quite honest. Time came to pile back into the van, and I began to tear up. Each person, other than the driver, slept on the way home- all exhausted from the beaming sun and running around. I just sat in the passenger seat, unable to close my eyes until the picturesque waters were completely out of view. I shed salty tears, careful to not make noise, lest I wake those around me.

This day I look back on with torturous pining, I miss the simplicity of being seventeen, I miss those friends who’ve now turned to strangers. I yearn for the ocean, the same way I yearn for death.

I believe, in a very deep sense, that one of the reasons I chose this destination as my last is because I want the rocky water beneath to feel the same as the rocky water from all those years ago. I hope this river travels with and feeds my departed body to the mouth of the ocean

---

I stand here naked, the night swallows me whole. It is a gaping mouth without the moon, but I couldn’t allow her to watch me succumb to the dark. A new moon is a time for manifesting your goals, to make decisions. And what better time is there than tonight, where the bleak gloomy nothingness erodes the little light I have left in my eyes?

The blackness is lonely, this bridge even lonelier. I cannot decide whether to detach my grasp or tighten it. My arms are beginning to shake, the awkward angle at which they stiffen behind me. I feel the weight of my entire livelihood balanced precariously between my shoulder blades. 

I begin to shuffle forward, losing my grip. I know this is it. The whole affair will be over, no more pain or sorrow. I try to convince myself I won't feel a thing, and that nothing can be any more painful than what I’ve already spent my life enduring. The sharpness beneath cannot cut like the words of those who torment. The water can not drown me worse than the world around me has. 

But before I can take that final leap of faith, I stop. I breathe. I crouch. The same stance I held minutes prior (minutes, hours or days?), I push one leg at a time in front of me, still holding onto the beam, and sit on the overhang I once stood. I let go, relinquishing my terror along with my grasp. I am almost comfortable, sitting with my neck resting on the thin metal I once held in weary and uncertain hands. “I will need to stand up again when I jump,” I know this for a fact. If I slid myself from this height, all I’d do is break my legs. And would it even count towards my plan, my original intention of jumping off this bridge? I don’t know, I don’t care. I am tired, my arms are tired. I sit with hands planted beside me, palms on the unsympathetic concrete. 

I begin to weep.

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I stand here naked, and without warning, I stand no longer.

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if you made it this far thank you for reading -abb3y