Genesis
by Sabrina Ysabelle C. Ledesma In the beginning, there was darkness—and space was nothing but a barren sea of thoughts, waiting to be formed. Until one day, strings of light pulled the universe into focus and from there, the world was born. We think so precious of this earth, only for it to pull apart at the seams and leave us to deal with the debris. It greets us with life and love but robs the very essence of these the moment we’re aware of them. And human as we are, we let it. Like everyone else, I greeted existence with a loud cry. Welcoming the air to fill my lungs, taking in my earliest taste of life. And from this very first breath, came everything ahead of me, everything I became, and everything expected from a kid. My childhood plays into my mind like a film reel—montages of oblivious happiness wrapped in the better end of my memories, and flashbacks of the trauma I have yet to discover by then. Things were so much brighter when all it took were the ringing of ice cream bells and a mother’s embrace to feel complete. But it’s all just a part of the delusion. Life will take every chance of crashing down on you if you let it. So I started playing god. I remembered that no matter the theory, the universe all started the same way—with darkness in the face of the deep. Now, every time my life dims even just by a little, I send a black hole into this realm and create a new world. Erasing what once was, and replacing it with happier proxies for the truth. For every damned mistake, I basked in the feeling of nothingness, until I found fiction strong enough to bring light into my perspective. For every death, every goodbye, every heartbreak, there was a whole new world waiting to be made without it. So I went and conquered, colonizing every piece of grief in my bones, over and over again until numbness was the nearest I’ve gotten to being happy. But all I am now is stuck in a void—floating, but never holding up. I send a thousand portals into this empty sphere, only to be the one who gets sucked in. I wonder if that first breath I took was worth the soon bitter taste of life. It’s been seven years of trying and still, I’m faced with the desolation that creeps and destroys the deepest reaches of my mind. It’s been seven years, and I’m still tricking myself into these false scenarios that are long gone.
It’s been seven years, and maybe it’s time to lay myself to rest.
Maybe when I wake up and once again see the light, I’ll finally learn to live in a world I didn’t create.
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