i wanna keep on running until it no longer beholds me. i wanna keep on running until i finally find my refuge.

when i say it's physical, can you feel the depths of my despair, the boundaries of my helplessness? the pathetic cries of help i whimper?

i’m drowning, mother. can’t you see it’s freezing me to death? tell me a way out of it. is there a specific prayer in the quran you read every day for rescuing your daughter, who feels everything a little too much, from this dark spell that was cast upon her, but most of all from herself?

my heart is shuddering; i could feel it thud as if the whole world were echoing the woes. i am clutching my favorite blanket as if my whole life depends on it, as if it could provide my stone-cold body a teeny bit of warmth.

i am tired of running around mom, tell me a way to stop the hurt; tell me a way to stop running around in circles. i thought i was over this nightmare.

i thought the day i said goodbye to my past was the day i would meet these demons for the last time, yet why didn’t it go away? how do i get rid of those shadows when it has become an inseparable part of myself? i wanna scream, but i am too scared to show the world that i exist. i am finding the darkest and loneliest of corners to hide as if i’m trying to hide from myself. the fireplace is well lit, and i am wearing two thick sweaters and a coat, yet why cant i stop shivering? why am i seeking refuge under blankets as if they could save me from my misery?

when people ask me what i’m scared of most, i wanna tell them it’s this feeling that takes over me, leaving me with no control, a feeling so powerful even death seems trivial. i am hoping for a stroke, a warmth that could save me from freezing to something beyond death, yet i am too tired to lift my hand, too tired to let out a cry.

i am too tired mother, when will i ever be free from its grip? where will i seek my refuge?whom do i call for help? when my sister jokingly said how you were building a giant fort around me to not let anything pass, did you have any idea how your daughter had died a thousand deaths already by now, just because the chambers of her heart were too huge? how she is cursed with the same agony that is eating her alive?

i still remember feeling the same exact grip, with the same exact intensity, while i lay there, hands tied, screaming at the top of my lungs while trying to study for my semester exams; when it appeared in the middle of the day even while i was surrounded by hundreds of people; the number of times i tried to fight my tears and plastered a smile across my face; the number of times i broke down when the heat that fumed inside burnt my chest to dust; the number of hours i spent in the empty dark hallways of my college hostel; and the number of times i wept in my roommate’s lap as if i were attending a funeral.

would it have been different if i chose not to love at all?

what even is the point of it all , to feel pretty, smart, or talented for an instant when one-third of that whole instant is just enough to rupture it all, hunt me down, choke my existence, and bring me to ashes, regardless of how far i go, is there really an end point, or is it all a series of dumb running around in circles—my life cycle in a nutshell?

when i say it's physical, can you feel the depths of my despair, the boundaries of my helplessness? the pathetic cries of help i whimper? can you see how my ribcage is crushed under all this weight so that it can barely breathe? can you see how i am tagging this heap of demons along like an ant tied to a stone?

i wanna keep on running until it no longer beholds me. i wanna keep on running until i finally find my refuge. i wanna run without a compass. i wanna run until my limbs turn into sand if that means never having to feel it all.

i wanna retreat back to my shell, where my existence is nothing more than a void in the universe. i wanna hide under all this darkness no matter how long it takes, to be under the darkest and darkest of caverns that it almost blinds me, if it means being spared, getting to breathe without this ache within, and never feeling it again, ever feeling like a corpse while i gasp for taking a breath, to witness as they take out my flesh and burn me alive.