The Day After

(set: $spirit to 0) It's the day after you died. [[The sky is beaming. Starlight is grazing the ground, you feel the cosmos pierce you, with a gentle allure.]] [[No mercy is shed; the rains are washing over all that you had known. Wind is no longer a whisper -- it is a tremble.]]

It's so radiant, it's blinding -- sometimes the burning light was never so good. It reminds you of your hospital gown, new and fresh -- "//don't be afraid//," when you see that they are the ones with fear in their eyes. "//Oh right//," you remember that there are people who are waiting for you. [[Stride towards what is familiar]] despite it being the brightest day of your life. (set: $spirit to it + 1)

Perhaps this is a telltale sign of a darkening -- enveloping you, heart - all muscle and soul; trapping you in a fog, a haze of a downpour. You are beyond that. You have always liked the rain. Dancing by yourself in a cold room; a/c turned up despite it pouring -- vinyl turning as the wooden floor matches up to your pace. [[Stride towards what is familiar]], like the echoes you left on the wooden floor. You think... what's most cold is that you have always danced alone. (set: $spirit to it + 3)

Your father is [crying]<c1|; for the first time ever his stern, hard gaze has dimmed into sorrow. He does not look like the same man he was. For some reason, your sister is just as she always was -- [eyes transfixed on the phone]<c2|, fingers tapping a little faster than they ever had before. (click: ?c1)[Ever since your feet left the hospital floor, he hasn't slept.] (click: ?c2)[Fogged over, hood up -- tears are the new mainstream; she can't stop thinking.] [[They only care when I'm dead.]] [[Hold them.]]

For the first time, you hear them utter words that aren't '//worthless//' -- you hear //beautiful//, //talented//, an //inspiration// --- words that you thought you would have never heard. Especially from them. (set: $spirit to it - 5) You can't help it, but you hug your mother for the first time. It feels cold, strange - distant. She raises her hand, you reflexively cover yourself. She looked at you. The [[corner of the room is cold]].

Eyes drawing, you embrace them -- over and over, yet they remain the same. (set: $link to 0) [I'm here.]<c1| [I'm here.]<c2| [I'm here.]<c3| [I'm here.]<c4| [I'm here.]<c5| (click: ?c1)[(set: $link to it + 1)It's going to be okay.] (click: ?c2)[(set: $link to it + 1)Can you feel me?] (click: ?c3)[(set: $link to it + 1)Hello?] (click: ?c4)[(set: $link to it + 1)Is anyone listening?] (click: ?c5)[(set: $link to it + 1)You'll be okay.] {(live: 0.5s)[(if: $link is 5)[The [[corner of the room is cold]].]]}

[Two years, seven months]<bf| -- count it down like it's the only thing you know. More familiar than your own age - numbers that mark the totality of your relationship. (click: ?bf)[His heart is pounding, eyes are weary. You know that if you had to name someone who cared - his name would be the first on your mind.] Two years and seven months is alone. [[Eyes of crystal, don't you shatter.]] [[A rosebed, so fragile -- don't you forget.]]

(set: $spirit to it + 3) It was your secret -- stonecold, you had to keep up a facade. Hide yourself beneath walls, just as everyone does - fit in so that you wouldn't blend. The first time you looked into his eyes, you lost track of your thoughts. An irregularity in a system, mechanism so perfected and logical -- clockwork stopping for a tick in time. That's why we only counted down to two years, and seven months. Remember whenever your eyes glimpsed into his, it was like seeing yourself and all the bad in you that you had to pry out. Claw your skin until you're pure. [[Please don't look in the coffin,]] that's not who I am.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when you first held his hand. Sun was down, you were alone -- "//movie scenes don't happen to me//", repeat after me, "//but it happened and I don't know what's real anymore.//" He taught you what love was about, the difference between lust and longing, the difference between forever and two years. Whenever he touched you, it was like the world was alright -- no matter how short it would be. Skin crawling, mouth humming, you'd recognize his favorite songs by the way his lips pursed. It was like glass. You could finally see yourself, but you were so afraid for all of this to shatter. [[You're going to reflect it all.]] (set: $spirit to it + 4)

//No//, he repeats. You're the only one. The only one. The only. [[I'm sorry.]]

You were so scared of looking into his eyes, so scared of letting yourself go to someone who you knew could see every little piece of you. That's not who you are now, that's not what you want him to see. [[I'm sorry.]]

Your sister comes over, she hands him a box. Every single letter you've written to each other, all the things you've stashed for him. She knows that you keep it in your drawer - leftmost side, second from the bottom. He doesn't say a word, and she understands. [[The school says a prayer]], you're a candlelight vigil. Blue lights flood up the sky, [[it's a popularity contest and tonight you're a winner.]]

For a while, you're plastered -- intelligence, wasted. Youth, wasted. They gather up in compounds, trying to be sorry - remembering a name that they will never roll off their lips again. Pass you down as a ghost, the hallways are going to call for all those who you abandoned. Tears are shed, others weep -- you know the ones who you love aren't even there. Lock themselves inside, you don't want them to but they do so anyway. Again and again, they whisper your name throughout the pews. Story after story. [[I expected them to call me a legend for the scars on my wrists.]] (set: $spirit to it + 1)

The very first time someone remembered your name or thought about you out of the blue -- other than when they were reminded that it was your birthday and ignored you -- tonight. //You deserved so much more.// //You were too young.// Strangers join in, rack up the attention and the calls to fame. //What a shame, she was so pretty.// //What an attention grabber.// [[I expected them to call me a legend for the scars on my wrists.]](set: $spirit to it - 3)

You stand firm on your beliefs. Your lowest point is after you've died. Kiss the stars, you'll eventually wave goodbye. You are the shore, you'll be a single tide. [For you are the wind, and a gust can only linger for so long.]<d| (click: ?d)[(set: $movepls to 1) ] {(live: 0.5s)[(if: $movepls is 1)[Sometimes, [[I think the world is beautiful]].]]}

You find yourself in a field, far away from the cities. Far away from the smog that covers your windows - the garbage piling up in the corners of the street, cement that smells like ashes and dust. [[The sky is so blue.]]

You have only seen it like this in pictures, it's so mesmerizing. Like cotton, filling up the sky in dainty hues. The wind whispers, //what do the clouds look like, to you?// [[My bo--best friend, he is giving me a gentle smile. He looks like the radiant sun. I feel warm when he touches me, and even more so when we kiss. Happiness.]] [[Every gash and bruise left on me, the way my pale skin used to melt into blue. It stings, but I get used to the feeling --- so used to it that it made them scared.]] [[When I went to a trip, to the ocean -- when I was a kid. She's carrying me, and it feels warm. The cloth drapes over me, I fall asleep on her shoulder as the sun embraces me.]]

(set: $important to "the only one who had ever loved me and shown it, you are two years and seven months of my happiness - you are every smile, compacted into the time we shared. I want to make you as happy as you made me. That was the peak of my life, the time my heart finally... felt something.") (display: "Question2")

(set: $important to "to the people who were supposed to love and instead -- told me how to live; apathy was my foothold, you taught me how to embrace it. I learned that sorrow was last year's rage, and that now we simply accept these solemn days. I wish I could have found what happiness was -- if only you let me.") (display: "Question2")

(set: $important to "in all my dark days, I always knew that the world held so much beauty. The stars that have slowly been disappearing from the night sky, the auroras that fade into the horizon. There is so much in the world, so much more to see; so much more to be and feel, but in this world -- nothing is meant for a person like me.") (display: "Question2")

The clouds flutter in the wind, the temperature is just right. You could lay yourself down here, forever -- but you know that your time is ticking. The sky whispers, //what little thing do you miss?// [[Endless laughter, held in but still fully there -- I got used to suppressing the sound of my voice; but they always longed to hear it. I wonder if those nights with friends I have only ever heard could be relived.]] [[One time, I was sitting alone at a table in school; it was after classes and the sun was setting. It looked so perfect, and in the midst of everything -- I smiled. It was alright, everything was alright at that moment.]] [[As shallow as it may seem; whenever I was so tired that I felt like I could just sleep for a thousand years. I'd wake up, groggy and disoriented, the light would flash and I'd realize that I still have more time to sleep. And again, in bliss and without worry -- I'd drift off.]]

(set: $memory to "as apathetic as you have made me out to me -- as soulless as I may have seemed; an automaton -- you deem --- there is so much more that you have just blinded yourself to. Please do not summarize me in words that disgrace who I am as a whole. I may be a statistic, but I refuse to just be tagged by you. Sadness has consumed me and I may have lost the will to live, but I know that I am more than... empty. I had dreams. I had fears. I had... a longing to feel.") (display: "Question3")

(set: $memory to "I love to write but I absolutely can't bare reading. I cheat in tests and am undoubtedly a self-proclaimed pathological liar. I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I was so afraid of everything and everyone. I used to avoid the mirror because my reflection was the thing that haunted me most. I watched countless movies about love to try and see if I had ever felt something like it. I wondered why my heart never beat that way, I wondered why their touches felt like nothing -- why I felt like nothing.") (display: "Question3")

(set: $memory to "I had so many sleepless nights just longing for someone to be there, to talk to me. Sometimes I would be staring at my screen; wishing for someone to notice me, to tell me that my existence is acknowledged, that they know I'm here, that perhaps they need me. I would slide my finger across the tempered glass until it was an automatic action -- everytime there would be nothing. Of course I was too afraid to speak to anyone, of course I can't just go out and make friends. Of course I was in the course of a breakdown every single second, of course I believed in every single person who would told me that I would die alone.") (display: "Question3")

(live: 1s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[I suppose this is needed -- I do not want anyone to blame themselves. As much as I wish you would all not shed tears -- whether fake or not, I know it can't be helped.](stop:)] (live: 5s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[Let me tell you something about me, $memory](stop:)] (live: 15s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[Did you know, $important](stop:)] (live: 25s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[My name will be forgotten; and once again I will die when the last of you utters my name. I used to be so fixated on being remembered, to be known -- but now there is nothing but the firm assurance of knowing that I will fade into the stardust. I will dissipate, and all that will remain are the stillness of my silhouettes in photographs of people unknown.](stop:)] (live: 35s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[If... it's possible, I would like to be cremated. ](stop:)] (live: 40s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[Honestly, I am so nervous and scared. I've written so many notes. More than you could count; and if this is the one -- it might be a lot shorter than it should. It's just --- I am tired. I want to get it over with. I am sorry.](stop:)] (live: 60s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[$ending](stop:)] (live: 68s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[//end//](stop:)]

Time is a symphony, the world is an orchestra -- you are a note, skipped upon and rushed. But still, you listen. You listen to the branches, breaking and snapping in a single instant. You listen to the old songs you repeated, over and over -- music so loud it could deafen you, while you cried. You listen to all the words and all the "//I love you's//" that you had missed; you whisper it back. You shout it back. You... want to be heard. The heart whispers, //what is the melody within?// [[A soft piano instrumental that I tried so hard to learn. Me and him... we always wondered if it was sad or happy, and we would always shift between the two; never deciding which one it was. I wish I learned it.]] [[When I first stood up -- screamed my heart out; the lights were shining, my pulse was rising, but I felt so utterly free. Every line, every word -- in my memory. In my grasp.]] [[This song that I have been writing for so many years. I keep changing it and have over a dozen revisions; I'll never ge-- never got around to recording it, but it's mine. It will always be with me; no one else will hear it.]]

(live: 1s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[now what1?](stop:)] (live: 2s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[now what2?](stop:)] (live: 3s)[(t8n:"dissolve")[now what3?](stop:)]

(set: $ending to "You know who you are. You are my light. No matter what happens -- all for you. Every song, every whisper, all my heart. You are the waking world, the universe, and everything in between. I love you.") (display: "pick")

(set: $ending to "There is freedom if you are willing to fight for it; there is happiness if you are willing to soar for it. The fight was not meant for me, but I swear -- if I was stronger I would do it all over again. The world is bright, and the world burns for you -- that's why you hide.") (display: "pick")

(set: $ending to "No one will ever be able to dissect me -- and I will run my time as a number and a date on your calendar. Let all the words that I have left mark you - even for the shortest amount of time. My body has left but my spark is still there. It yearns, it longs -- it always will. I've always been that kind of silent fighter, right?") (display: "pick")

(set: $picked to 0) The sun is looming. Below a tree's shade is a [pink carnation]<c1|. (click: ?c1)[(set: $picked to it + 1)Your heart will forever have marked him. He kisses everything you have left; so desperately begging that it could be you. "I'll never forget you."] [Sweet pea]<c2|s have always looked so innocent to you. They gather around in pastel blooms. (click: ?c2)[(set: $picked to it + 1)They repeat your name, over and over -- even if it's just for a little while. Even strangers seem to tell you to rest; that you are meant for so much more than this world. "Good bye, thank you for a lovely time!"] You've only seen the [hybrid tea rose]<c3| in pictures -- but it stands out from the field. Of all the colors, the gradients mesh together and turn into a fluorescent wish. (click: ?c3)[(set: $picked to it + 1)It's always been your greatest fear, hasn't it? But they promise, they swear; and truly you are more than nothing. You linger in their memories, you linger for years to come -- they mention your name in passing but remember you in your fullest hours. "I'll remember, always."] One of the only flowers that you are used to naming, [Chrysanthemums]<c4| scatter themselves around, every now and then. They disperse themselves like it's been arranged -- in secret, they confide to you the world. (click: ?c4)[(set: $picked to it + 1)As much as you have repeated sorry -- the love is always there, even if you have never seen it. You were so much more than you thought; your //sorry// is an enigma; because you were love and hope in itself. "You're a wonderful friend!"] [Purple hyacinths]<c5| never struck you that much, but you are persuaded by your own self to pick a bundle up. You carry them along with all the rest; the light still stays above them. It will be okay. (click: ?c5)[(set: $picked to it + 1)You do not have to fear, you do not have to be scared. The world is a battle -- it's over now. Your eyes have been closed, did you know? Open them! It's safe. The light is here. Do not say sorry, because you have never been a burden, you have always been a smile. I'm sorry you couldn't find it. "I am sorry!"] {(live: 0.5s)[(if: $picked is 5)[You feel your eyes closing. The wind is so soft, and it's like you are treading on air. [[It feels safe]].]]}

Everyone congregates. The candles flicker, the wax drips upon the white edges. Glass is covered by a thin cloth -- some wish to look beyond, others know that it's not right. [[Slowly, a figure moves upwards and reaches the pew.->Note]] Their eyes are worn, their skin is trembling but they manage to smile. After a couple of coughs, everyone watches them as they pull out a crumpled piece of paper.