psychosomatic.

I play hide and seek with my afflictions until the syrupy heaviness of my maladies grips onto my feet and pulls me into itself. It's the same game of catch I used to play with my parents when I was younger, but this time I'm exhausted- my limbs are sore, my mind is dizzy and I just want everything to stop.

My dad recycles the same five pictures of his family on an obsolete social media, and his friends too, reuse the same remarks- laced with faux enthusiasm and interest. My brain, however, picks on other things, like the toothy-ness of my smile and the ugly patches of acne. The rationale is a callous creature- he quickly points out how I'm prettier now, with a bitter smirk might I add; but my soul is a sympathetic crier- she mourns for the lost brightness in the little girl's smile. Old worn-out photo albums speak volumes about my health where medical equipment fails to.

I remember echoes of a singular emotion that my elders expressed when I was little— jealousy. They wanted to be younger- like I was then. Twelve years have passed since but I don't relate to their wish to be small again, I wish I didn't exist. "Things will only get harder from here", mum points out when I struggle with something insignificant. I tell her that I don't want to go on then. "But life is the greatest gift to mankind!" Papa responds in his shock. My scepticism is ever rampant. The way I see it, life is an incarceration, and my body, home, money and time are varying hierarchies of imprisonment.

The lower bits of my spine clutch onto me at dark hours of the night, their talons sinking deep into my flesh until insomnia seeps out like the sap from a rubber tree. Some nights, I'm a mere spectator to the erratic waves of my breathing, helplessly staring at the ceiling as its stability slips through my grasp, on others, my diaphragm tries to push down on other organs as it tries to gasp for air: I ask my lungs "why do you fight for me some nights but desert me on others?" They have no answer. Anxiety nestles up under my eyes and makes me its home as weeks pass by. If sleep is like death, surely this is what dying must feel like.

My parents hate my nihilism- they shout and scream at me and call me ungrateful. Kids of my generation only know how to romanticize grotesque things, they say. They're right, I'm sure, what else does my privileged whiny brain do besides complain? I've made a mental note to never express sadness in front of them.

My lover tells me I carry too much melancholy in my chest. They leave kisses along my bare shoulder when teardrops fall from my eyes. It burns. Somedays I hate that they love me, much like I hate how the sun pours in through my windows when there's a thunderstorm indoors. Feeling unloved is hurtful, surely, but feeling loved has become despicable. I let their affection rot in my chest on those days, much like I let their lips cauterize my skin.