I might not make it, ladybug.
Wars eventually end
with piles of rotten flesh
on either side;
long dead
before oxygen
finds its way back.
And whoever ends up
with the most dead
loses the battle,
so the living
can stitch myths
of the ones
who couldn’t be killed.
All wars run the same course.
More or less.
Except
the ones you wage within.
Those wars
you keep telling yourself
are against the whims of the world.
You never really lose
a war with the world, do you
the world doesn’t bother
with a singular grain of sand
crashing into it.
To believe
you could scar its latitudes
is a dangerous delusion.
One I succumbed to early.
And once you fall
off that height,
spine broken, tendons bruised,
you don’t quite learn
to walk straight again.
But then,
the difference between delusion
and obsession
is only depth:
how far into your bloodstream
the daydream runs,
whether there’s still
something left
to cure.
I have always been persistent;
more often
with what should’ve been forgotten.
If only I had grown enough skin
to not feel the needle.
If only I had enough eyelids
to shut out my pupils.
You called it attention to detail, ladybug.
I think
the secret to life
is learning
to be inattentive.
I might not make it, ladybug.
It’s easy to give up on a fight
when you can’t walk straight.
But then again,
when had I ever liked anything
that didn’t threaten
to take everything away?
The first time I charged
like a raging bull,
you thought
maybe this time
would be different.
I believed it.
When you grow up in warzones,
you learn to survive wars.
Survive long enough;
you start believing
you can win them.
I had more scars than wrinkles.
And those were just the ones
on the skin.
I had seen wars for decades —
lived them,
survived them,
outlived them.
It felt reasonable
to assume
this time too
I would make it;
scarred,
but unscathed.
The truth about those
who learn to live through wars is,
they know
one day,
a war will end them.
There’s something almost sadistic in it:
the way they half-wish for it,
just to outlive extinction
one more time.
I fell again.
This time, harder.
Three broken ribs.
A punctured spleen.
You hoped
the gods would show mercy.
But my disbelief
was far too audacious
for forgiveness.
This time,
I healed less.
What do you heal into
when only half your body
remembers how to breathe?
I wasn’t just deluded.
I was obsessed
to the point of obsolescence.
Everything you once loved about me,
you now wish
I had, only much lesser.
I know.
You think, maybe then,
it could all be different.
And I only ever wished, ladybug,
that one morning
we’d wake into sunlight
and call this
an elaborate nightmare.
But I’ve been out of wishes
for a long time.
You’d scold me first,
cry after,
then hold me,
all of me,
so tightly
I’d forget
how fragile you were.
You’d look me in the eye
and say
the most clichéd thing
known to the dying:
“It’s going to be fine.”
And the conviction
in your pupils
almost made me believe it.
Almost.
“Why do you want to leave early?”
you asked.
“Do you not like living with me?”
I could never tell you the truth:
that I was on a death wish
long before you came along.
And for a brief while,
I believed
you could save me.
I really did.
But death wishes collect.
Always.
No almosts.
No ifs.
No buts.
The truth about those
who learn to live through wars is,
they know
one day,
a war will end them.
And sometimes,
they want it to.
Except this time,
there is no wanting left.
No hope.
No windows.
You’ll scold me first,
hold me after.
You’ll call me a coward.
You always knew
how much I despised the becoming.
You’ll hope
I come back
to prove you wrong.
Like all those times.
But ladybug,
look around.
The war is over.
There is no victory.
No defeat.
Just a body
that stopped fighting
before it stopped breathing.
And from here on,
it will only ever
be remembered
for as long as it takes
to spell out a name.
