The bell tolls once as I walk the streets alone. Strange, as the tower had not known my presence for some time
I cannot truly be alive when I walk so alone, so empty, so void of emotion
I feel nothing. I smile no more, I cry no more, I am numb
I tried to overcome this but in the end it caught up to me
A cloud of despair, bursting with the rain of the tears I’ve wept and the blood I’ve shed from my arms and wrists
It follows me everywhere I go, relenting for a moment only so it is able to strike again and take more of my life away when my guard is down
When I was young, I asked why anyone would ever want to be sad but I comprehend this now
It’s to avoid the void. To starve off starvation. To feel something. Anything. To remind you that you exist.
I walk the streets with no one by my side
I climb the stairs of the church i was raised in, God looking down on me with disgust
The cross looked different than it did the last time I came to meet its presence; it seemed almost inverted when I looked at it
I pass the pews and the altar, the old scarlet book open to the same page it was two years ago
 i walk to the old oak doors of the bell tower and pull on the brass handles, the rush of stale air passing by my face
the ropes i used to pull to signal the beginning and end of mass hang before me, clear as day in the dead if night. I grasp them as I ascend;
the old wooden scaffold seems colder and more macabre than I remembered it last, but what else happens with age
The halo tightens round my skull and
For one last time I close my eyes and see the way I used to be
The way I used to laugh
The way I used to cry
The way I used to love
Then, I fall and the bell tolls once, the end of a sermon 16 years in length.
1 comment
Hey Lostchild445,
Very nicely written…shame about the content. What is it about church bells that always makes me melancholy? Sorry you’re hurting. Are you having a crisis of faith? Or were you looking for an answer in the church?
We’re here to talk and help if we can
Peace
Amakua