A Realization by Iqra Abid

I let my candles burn for hours, cleansing over and over and over again. The smell of flames and wax linger a week later, but I am still restless. Maybe I’m looking for answers in the wrong place, pleading with a universe that does not hear me instead of listening to the body that homes me. I turn inward and pull out a doctor’s note. It says that my mind is a strange machine, sometimes over-oiled & leaking; other days, the gears refuse to turn. I haven’t slept in days, watching my life melt into one very long moment in which I never blink. Sometimes I feel myself sinking into it—the softened wax, the warmth hanging in the air—I sink until I cannot breathe. When I finally begin to dream, I wake not knowing what is real. Reality blends into fiction and I start forgetting how to tell time—my brain constantly reconfiguring itself in response to damage. One night it clicked, and I settled into understanding abruptly and imperfectly, sucked into the paradox of highs and lows, of nonsensical cycles. I am a disordered machine fueled by disaster, a flawed thing staring into a cracked mirror. No one sees what I do, my reflection a perfect place to learn how to love.