scattered, me

005: latching onto the world.

“When I was young, I thought Paradise was another country, a place you go to rest and escape from the world. I didn’t understand the grief Paradise wrought upon people, when the inhabitants of it were so happy.”

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I see my self and the world, and how I feel scattered across space and time, as if I was spreading out little breadcrumbs of my soul for people to discover and gaze upon.

I was walking around my house the other day and I saw the ghosts of past me’s: one was flaunting a pink dress in the corner of the living room; one was smearing bright lipstick on her soft lips; one was watching Barbie Princess Charm School on a portable CD player. Then, I think about time and how I feel so close, yet so far from these moments.

I look around the house I’ve been staying in for more than a decade and a half, where all my first memories occurred, and I see myself in every little crack of the wall and in every little crook of the parquet floor.

I am an emotional person, although my tears are often frozen in my throat, my anger is often locked in a cage, and my urge to shout muffled with whatever words I come up with to make myself seem normal. And I wonder, if to soothe my self, I scatter little pieces of my core to the world around me.

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The walls speak to me, and they show me invisible hands; the ones that drew hearts with permanent markers on the kitchen doorway and the ones that stuck fluttering bird stickers on the wooden cupboards.

I could once see my reflection in the shining chandelier that hung in the wide living room. Now, it’s rusted and crying, and I can see my past self looking back at me, wondering at how the room seems so cramped now.

My hand used to fit in my mum’s. Now, we have the same shoe sizes.

I see myself in the dressing table mirrors. I see myself playing with the doors as I think about what to eat for dinner.

My fingerprints are etched in every surface of this house, and the blueprint of this house is etched in every surface of my memory.

The pencil marks on my wardrobe, the torn times-table paper on it and my old penny bank. The plaster is peeling, and along with it, my old skin.

I see my face in the little scribbles I used to draw, I see my footprints on the scratched parquet floor, my body is oozing memories and I have no choice but to bathe in it.

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I am scattered across time. I am scattered across the world. My soul is ever-changing and it latches until everything feels tangible. I exist all at once, and—

I can almost touch those curls. I can almost feel the gap in my front teeth. And I can almost feel little curious eyes, peeking out from mine that the bright afternoon sun showers.

I found a whisker on the floor this morning. It was long and springy, and it felt like love. I kept it in my drawer.

It would be the tangibility I needed someday. Someday, it would be the recreation of the love I feel when my cats’ whiskers brush against my cheek.

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Last night, I massaged my grandmother’s back. My hand pushed through the dark rivers of the expanse, and she shivered. She asked me to stop, popped a pill in her mouth and dry-swallowed it.

And I eased out the veins in which part of my own blood flows; and her dyed black hair brushed my hands. Spots of snow still dance around her head, but I can only see it in certain flashes of the softly glowing night lamp.

And in that moment, both of our shadows merged in the dark, and we were just existing.

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