6. Mustard

I still love you, I promise.

Your words still hurt me and your absence still pains me.

But I had a good day today.

I was happy, not just for a single-second moment.

It was not just a half-baked smile before the tears start to rain again.

True laughter came from my mouth, honest words shared with a stranger.

A knife in my hand and mustard on my fingers.

Suddenly, I felt hunger for the first time again.

Only for a second. In a short-breathed moment.

Easy to forget, hard to remember.

Oh, but I remember.

As I remember, thirst creeping up on me there in my throat, demanding liquid.

Water never tasted this good.

Hunger and thirst, not lost, just forgotten.

I thought I was dead, wounded soul, my body rotten.

Medicine for my soul? I didn’t know how to get it, where to look.

I don’t know how to heal. But am I healing?

Like the little mustard seed slowly grows its branches.

Like after a good day, slowly and without haste, others will follow?

Or is this just the silence before the storm?

This day as a gift, an excuse saying:

“There is yet worse to come.”

A cigarette of mercy before my head gets detached.

Before I get hung up on a tree like a Christmas decoration.

Before I drown in my sorrows.

Before I step off the bridge.

I don’t know.

Left with a spark of hope for better days, left with the anxiety for the worst.

Numbing the pain,

Happiness is still in my veins.