I sat down to write...and this came out.

I still feel it just as strongly as the day it happened. In fact, I do not ever think it has gone away or even attempted to leave. It resonates through my bones, pulses through my veins – I feel it in the melted pieces of my glass heart, which shattered on that very day. I feel it right behind my eyes sometimes. As it wells up from deep inside with everything it has. It forces its way right to the edge and like a steady slow refrain from a song, it pours out of me uncontrollably. I feel it when I eat…the bitter taste of the food that gags me until I feel it all coming back up. I feel it when I breathe…it lives like a black hole inside my lungs – daring me to try to let out a breath. I feel it when I sleep…the dreams haunt me – dreams of that day.

It was the day I lost my voice. The day I realized that words could never capture how I felt inside. What I felt was beyond expression…it still is. The meaningless arrangements of letters…what have they to offer? I think had I the energy, the strength, the drive, the determination to sort them out and put them together…what would I say?

“One sentence,” I challenged myself.

Today, I will speak one sentence…one sentence to the world that says it all. It was quite a tumultuous task. Since that day, I still have not spoken. I spent the whole day arranging and rearranging the letters. Staring at the comma, as if it had all the answers. Yet, it never came. That sentence is somewhere though. It is waiting for me. The sentence that will comfort me…the sentence that will give me back what I lost…even if it is only my voice. That one sentence has been eluding me for years now.

The more I think about it…the more painful it gets. It was not as if it was a surprise. I knew it was going to happen. I think that is what made it hurt the most. That feeling inside that shouted and reverberated off every rib inside of me…the feeling that it was coming…and nothing I could do could stop it. It was that tender feeling of helplessness left uncared for…yet nothing could ever help that helplessness…nothing at all. Believe me, I looked, I searched, I dug through the core of my soul for something, anything, that would ease the pain.

Every now and then a touch…a hand placed over mine…a kiss on the cheek where my tears were streaming…a palm resting upon my back just below my neck where all the tension in the world seemed to lie…every now and then this seemed to help. I would feel the tension dissipate if only for a brief moment…but it always came rushing back…overwhelming the spot where, for once it ceased to exist.

They say, “Madness is pain.” I think pain is madness as well. Who of us wants to live carrying a load so heavy that it breaks your back with every step? One day you realize you cannot even walk. You crawl through life. Eventually, you cease to move. You lie…alone…seemingly untouchable anymore…not wanting to breathe, for even that hurts. As you wither away, the anger builds inside of you…anger at the person for leaving you this way…anger at the disease for taking over the one you loved so very much…anger at yourself for not having done more…anger at the way you allowed yourself to get so close…anger at the fact that you are human, that your heart breaks, that you hurt, that you are weak, that something inside of you loves, cares, feels for, and embraces the pain of other souls…anger.

It is an anger that is eternal, just like the grief with which it battles. You tell yourself, “You fucked it up.” This turns into, “You fucked it up again.” Again and again and again and…well, you get the point. You beat yourself up from the inside out. People watch from the outside, never quite understanding. Then, one day, it happens. Your skin ruptures…that jagged piece of your shattered heart is sticking out of the gentle curve just below your ribs. At last…they see it. The very moment they realize what has been eating you up is they very moment in which the anger and the grief overtake you. The slight chance they are given to help is but an illusion…for you have lost in that same instant. Your insides pour out and there is no room for the outside to crawl in. Valiant attempts produce the same results as feeble attempts. And you are drawn back to the words that never could help. Noticing that so many, like valiant and feeble, are interchangeable. This pain is death. This death is pain. This life is pain. This pain is life. This life is death. This death is life. Any order…it does not seem to matter. Anger is grief. Grief is anger.

And just as you slip away from the world forever…you find it…or rather it finds you. That one sentence creeps into your soul from the outside…finds its way into your bleeding throat cut apart by the glass lodged inside of it…it rests on your lips for a brief moment before sending itself out into the world…your last words…your only words since that day…the fleeting remnants of what was considered a soft and yet strong voice fades away into the night…whispering…“Never lose your voice - no matter how valiant or how feeble - in the end it is all you have.”