Mehreen Hashmi

It feels so safe and normal to me but alone. Silence outside my window, in the street, seems peaceful but lonely. But why am I petrified with this silence? I have been alone several times, I have been also left alone in grief, in a car accident, in sickness, in sadness, in fact in all of those situations when it’s excruciating for human beings to be left alone. Exactly when I was learning to accept friendships and letting others enter my space. The thing is I have visited my darkest tunnel with no light on its end. I became that girl in the tunnel which has been dragging me inside back her again because she feels left alone there. But I had to leave her alone in that tunnel without light because it was suffocating me. I wanted light hence I dragged my bruised and shredded existence out of the tunnel only to find out there was a thick jungle waiting for me where battling between humans never let you sleep and feel safe even in your own house. Some humans left me alone again as soon as I slipped back to that tunnel and be that girl myself. I still don’t know if she is me or she is part of me, only a certain thing is we are one existence with two living creatures. I am not angry about being alone but I am furious about crushing my dignity and last bit of self-esteem with judgments and no chance of justification. No one asked about that slip, no one thought what and who pushed me through the drain back to my tunnel. The last straw was him who took off my shirt and took away, whatever was left with my dignity. He took everything from me that, for a few moments of his lust. He took my ability to trust humans again. He took my sense of safety in my own bed and in my own room which took a decade to build. It took me my entire life to feel safe for the first time and he took it from me. When I finally started feeling safe among other humans and in my bright space outside that dark tunnel, he took away all the light from me which I lit by burning myself for years. He took away part of my soul which I had cleaned after years of struggle. He poured his disgust again on my soul which has been poured several times by his kind. This disgust has been poured on me several times but this one was different; this time, he knew about my struggles with the cleaning of disgust like his. But he didn’t care about it and poured it again, this time it didn’t mess over me but have burnt my soul. Now that everyone is living a life like mine, staying inside their bubbles, I am scared of falling again back to that darkest tunnel without the light on its end and be that girl who has been screaming at me for leaving her there. I have always been able to bring myself back to life but this time they took every bit of my self-respect, my self-esteem, my confidence in being a good person, my belief in being deserving of this light. They have taken a piece of me this time hence I am left with nothing. But I did make an effort and quarantine happened to leave me stranded with my thoughts and her screams. This time, I cannot let anyone enter my space yet I have to be alone to console her. Either she takes me down again or else I will simply live there with her myself. The good part about this quarantine is that I feel safe, no one will enter my space and no one will pour their disgust on me. I wake up every morning and silence her screams. Its second week being at my place and the third day of complete isolation, I have succeeded so far. Let see, where it ends, me in the tunnel or her leaving me at peace with the light.