Being a beautiful butterfly.

My mother has been dead for years now but I am still inside this apartment that we shared, under the blankets. And now my stomach churn and toes curl and muscles twist and twitch and shiver as the skin over my cheeks and arm soak more of the salty water blurring out from my vision. I still wait under these covers for her to wake me up like she used to do back when I used to groan at her annoying shouts and all her lectures about how I can become a better person but now that she doesn't do it anymore and the fact that she must be searching for me in the afterlife but I am not able to do anything because I am too coward to finish all of my crying cells. She's gone. Gone just like that. Never blinked and never breathed and flew with the wind.

Under the water, the clear deep blue ocean I used to love but now I feel the danger and while its afternoon and I really should get up and work but I just cannot ignore today's date of another year that builds another weak step in my ladder without her. 5 years. Clear deep blue water, my head is pushed in and I violently turn my neck to uncurl the fingers pressed against my throat and I scream and shout and scream and cry but my voice doesn't come out anymore. It's all inside, injected inside every memory, every cell and every vein. Screaming from within. The loss that nobody can actually explain, love someone and then one day they are the dust over the photos of good memories and when I try to brush it, It flies and makes me cough and cough and cough till my face reddens. 

Slowly, just like I do every time, my fingers hold the edge of the blanket and slip it from over my face and I pop my head up, goosebumps on my skin and a big gulp of saliva clots on top of my tongue, the taste of sourness makes my face crease into a frown while my eyes dread to face the corpse waiting for me. Everybody is born to die one day, they say, everyone says, life goes on, they say, everyone says. I will never let you go away from me, she said, always said. Always said that it's like this world she made where there will be her daughter-me and her. I don't know about dad, mom says he vanished before they had a chance to gift me a sister or a brother. So It was her, her, her in every way. I can never say goodbye to her. Then why did she say? 

Or did she found another more worthy place where there will be no chaos and no pollution of thoughts and no tension but just I and her. 

The corpse. I hold it between my fingers and place it on my palm then just stare at it, the caterpillar looks so crushed and broken but I can't help it now, It just came under my feet last night and died when it could not carry my weight any longer. I picked it up and kept it at my window last night, my drunk state planning its proper burial. Now my fingers rake up the soil from the only flower pot I own as I slowly place the body and cover it. I don't smile nor I cry, I stare, stare till my eyes hurt and water pools out. Mom used to keep butterflies inside a cage, it's fun, she would say, it's fun to have so many beautiful butterflies whom I can adore every time. They were with her since they were crawling in their first stage, so after her death, I tried to open the cage and make a constant swinging motion with my hands for them to understand that they should shoo away. Their beautiful wings fluttered out and rested on my head, refusing.

You are strong. I press the fingers of my feet against the floor as my head spin with that hurtful whispers of motivation I heard on motivational videos and my mouth throwing out the breakfast like it's some poison I've cooked. You are strong. My stomach squeeze and my skin numb and my vision blur as my head shook forcefully. No. No. No. Those words sound encouraging and good on every ted video I hear to forget what haunts me but, in the end, when the light melts, when it darkens, quietens, it is just me staring at the sky, trying to talk to the starts knowing that it is so wrong. So wrong to not let go. So painful to remind over and over again that

I cannot do this

I cannot do this

I cannot do this without you.

Those butterflies are still there, outside the window which is jammed closed for 5 years. A vision of my mom with her long and perfect hands around my arms as I sit on her lap comes as I wash the unfinished plates. I cut my hair short recently because she used to comb my long hairs, and they reminded me of her, everything does but when those long hairs dangled on my thighs I felt as if her long fingers caressed my skin like she used to. And I needed money for my next dinner so I cut it myself and now its uneven edges tickle the back of my neck. There's a coffee stain surrounded by ants on the kitchen Island, my fingers scratch the dried coffee while the ants run and the back of my palm dampen as the sunsets. 

I have said to people with whom I shared my lunch back at my high school because they said they will be always there for me after my mother's death but time goes on and life goes on and they just swish me away from their memories and we then don't talk anymore. Nobody believes it. They ask how I am coping up and I hate this but I instantly feel like they really care for me so I come out with all of my cries because I just feel like crying when I realise that my mother is not there anymore to warm me, to tell me that everything is not crazy, not there to wrap her arms around me like a blanket, I always had a tiny bit of hope that people would understand but their eyes tell me that I am overreacting and that I should just let it go but I just cannot let it go and I miss her! Also, I do not know any swimming so I keep on drowning and drowning until I have nothing left of my brain to make sense of my life. I need you!, I cry every night, I need you, I need you, I need you, I.

As I think about these memories, about how I behave during the morning time, I am calm when the light melts, when it darkens, quietens and they are back, there are seven butterflies with beautiful wings that rest on my head while I let the soft night breeze hit my skin and make my eyes close, I take a deep breath and try to focus on the sounds that I loved the most, the musical rhythm that hung in my ear sounds so good when I shift my mind from the miseries and focus deeply on the melody the butterflies make, the butterflies who sit on this ground where my mother was buried, they are alive, this butterflies who come to me every time I cry and cry and cry about the loss of my ma. Their melodies that make it sound like the angels are singing make those fingers loosen around my neck and I learn to swim again in that ocean I love, explore it more knowing that I miss her so much, that she will not be there beside me anymore but she left them, these butterflies for me. And every night as I sit on the roof and these butterflies come at zero 'o'clock with a kind of environment which works like a magic for me and I think maybe they go to a magical shop to take care of their wings. 

They make me think of her because they know how much she loved me and how much I loved her, they sing me songs that make me cry because they are so beautiful and remind me again and again that she loved me and only me and that she would never let her eyes see me this miserable. They caress my skin like she used to and somehow, she is there even if she is not. And now that after almost 5 years marks her death. I build up the courage to rub my eyes dry and smile as they all flutter and caress my cheek and their every moment seems like they are singing me lyrics I always that I always wanted to lift my spirits. I smile and that's all I know before my lips whisper a soft "bye" 

And then I wake up wet again. No.