Just Another Lie

Dull morning light gently flooded through the bedroom window, rendering the nightlights plugged in around her room useless once again. Alexis had an affinity for items of the past, habits of the past. She only learned to sleep with the bedroom door shut a year prior when she moved into her single apartment. And that was really only for safety concerns if she is being honest - one extra obstacle between her any anyone who would want to hurt her.

She sleeps with a taser and knife in her nightstand and her childhood stuffed animals underneath her bed. Her drawers are filled with clothes that don’t fit anymore and t-shirts from high school even though she has been out of college for over a year now. 

After scrolling her phone for about 45 minutes, she finally has the courage to consider getting up. But really? She just has to pee. There was no will power in that decision as often is the case for anything that she does these days.

She stretches, allowing passive sighs to escape her mouth because she woke up alone today. No one else could hear her existing; just the way she prefers. After tilting one hip to the side and twisting the opposite knee as far over it as possible, she flips and does the same in reverse. Anyone who has ever heard her back twisting and popping in person is always concerned, but that wasn’t their business today. She was alone.

A few hours glide past in her small one bedroom apartment. While she has the urge to eat, it is much more of a chore to make food than she lets off. Not to mention simple things such as brushing her teeth and washing her face.

Dishes are piled onto the counters from the sink, loads of laundry sit in the washer and dryer where they’ve been for the past several weeks. No matter how desperately she tries to keep up with cleaning, she can’t.

At times, this is due to her sickness. Chronic, life altering, dangerous amounts of pain often leave her crippled and unable to function. With two abdominal surgeries done and another one likely to happen in the future, answers may be closer than ever before or even farther than she’d imagined. No one knows for sure until the next one comes.

Alexis stares at the TV in her living room, noticing large gatherings of people down at the pool. She does her best to hide from the window so that they can’t see her, hating the idea that she could garner any attention whatsoever. Their mere presence makes her feel more isolated than she already is.

Within another few lonely hours, she prepares for a group yoga class across the street where her boyfriend would be meeting her. Pants and shirts fly on and off, every trip to the mirror delivering disappointment. Alexis doesn’t cry on many occasions and rarely ever at her rather curvy, beautiful figure. But today she does. One too many looks in the mirror does it - she will never see what everyone else does. She can only see what her mother and grandmother drilled into her mind, she can only see the health and weight struggles that are not externally visible. She can’t be happy with how she looks today. Her brown hair falls softly around her frame as tears begin to bring out the speckles of green dashed within her left eye. It is a rather mesmerizing sight to see, if only it were not under such sad circumstances.

Yoga begins - faith based yoga. The instructor prays, reads scripture, plays worship music. All the while Alexis sits there wondering why God can only love her because she is wretched and broken and hopeless. She didn’t choose to be the scum of the earth; someone who needed saving so desperately that her own God would have to die for her. Is that really a compliment? She thinks. Is that really love? She wonders.

Her world has been crashing for a while - years, really. But therapy over the last few months has escalated the process. 

Alexis daydreams of Jesus and who he really is outside of the religion that is constantly shoved down her throat. She also imagines the ways in which she would leave behind her belongings, songs, and poems if she were to not wake up one morning. What the letters would say to her family and friends and who would miss her if anyone would at all. Meanwhile, the boy she is in love with sits on his mat just a few feet away. Nothing seems to be able to fix despair, even a love like that. And that particular love is nothing to scoff at, let me tell you. His heart and mind are so beautiful. He tells her he loves her so often she can barely count and she does the exact same in return. But in those darker moments for her, love doesn’t feel real. It seems much easier to think that everyone would still be okay without her, including him.

The day continues to pass, landing at dinner with a friend she hasn’t seen in months. With eyes bright and a smile full of contagious joy, she greets her with a full embrace and shrill laughter. They sit down to talk, Alexis making light of her entire existence as she has been accustomed to doing over and over and over again. Not because anyone asked her to lie out loud, but because no one ever knows what to do. And so it became her burden to carry.

Alone, sad, and distressed by the weight of life she continues to be - and the only one in the world who has any idea at all is inside of her mind; someone who doesn’t get luxuries like smelling the aroma of Italian spices and the sweetness of wine in her near vicinity. The only girl who can save Alexis is trapped within the darkness of her own subconscious - disillusioned and blind from years of being shoved down. But at least the shell of her being can bask in the presence of a friend, the salty taste of garlic bread while awaiting her favorite bowl of spaghetti and her favorite desert… Just a little longer, just another day and month and year. Just another lie to survive tomorrow.