I can't sleep.

I tried.

I can't.

I am seeing her everywhere, and I am not dreaming yet.

I look at the mess I did. It's funny because messing things is what I do. I mess up everything. Before, I thought it was just a coincidence. But then it happened again and again. I mess things up. The shame faded into apathy. The coincidences became my reality. I was no longer surprised. I was okay. I was fine with messing everything for anyone I know or knew. Now the shame arose from a different source. One that fed on mistakes. I no longer cared. The mess was my ghost. It followed me around. Gave me a reason to go on. To cause more damage. In my best days, I would lock myself up and keep this mess to myself. But I am not always that strong. So it drives me out in my best clothes. And I get into others' lives and drag them down with me. Under that cloud of mess. And when I dim their shine and steal their glow, I detach. I go back to my cocoon and pray they heal from the mess I fed them to. I always hoped they would understand that it's not my fault. I never wanted to hurt anyone. It's that menacing cloud that follows me. I had to do it. The mess had to consume them, or it will consume all of me. Now it's funny because I thought I no longer minded the mess, but now I do.

I am in a different mess now. A mess that pinches my heart and burns my head, yet freezes my limbs. I struggle for relief, but I know I don't deserve it. For all I've done, I am not surprised by what's rebounding at me. I deserve this well, and karma is always the winning player. It's a game where allies turn against each other, for the mess that has been my only friend just consumed the only thing that that keeps me alive.

That's all about the mental mess. But I made a physical mess myself. I wrecked the whole apartment upside down. I pretended to do that out of reason. I said I needed anything that leads me to her or anything that belonged to her. I needed to make sure I grasped her memory physically. I needed to hold her to my chest. I needed her so I can sleep. But I knew well that this isn't the reason. I wanted to make a mess. Like every time. When you are used to only wreck the people around you, you don't really know how to act when you're the wrecked one. So I damage. I destroy. I want revenge but on who? On myself? But I never blame myself, do I? I need to destroy like I always do. So I brought down all the hanging clothes, emptied all the dressers on the floor, threw all my belongings to the ground, and made it a whole new wreckage of my own. Except that this one isn't abstract, and in some way it's soothing.

I loved the aftermath. And the wave of exhaustion that floods your body the moment you know you're done with the job. And you need to rest. At that second, I thought I saw something under my bed. Can this be? It is. And I am happy, and I am sad. I want to scream out my uselessness, but I still want to hold it to my chest and weep out of happiness. This is my companion for the night. Her necklace. She leaves nothing behind. Not even a dirty cup. She makes sure to leave everything content and tidy. Like she was never there. She apologizes every time she catches me staring at her as she cleans or organizes. She would say it's just a habit that turned into an obsession and that she's sorry for being weird. And I would just scoop her by the shoulders and kiss the soft skin of her forehead. I would always tell her that nothing about her counts as a flaw. She only makes everything perfect. A flaw isn't a flaw if it's on her. It's a bonus. It's something that I would love and miss. She never understood though. She never knew that if she stabbed me, I wouldn't hate her. I wouldn't even ask her why. I will take the knife in and ask her what she wanted for dinner. I would die for her a thousand times and never regret it. She's all I've got and all that I want. I wish she knew. This time my baby made me mercy and left something behind.

The necklace was a gift from her dad. It resembled an Omega symbol. I remember asking her what did that mean. She told me that her dad fancied the ancient Greek literature and manuscripts. He loved them. He scavenged them. It was his sole hobby. Omega is the last letter in the ancient Greek alphabet. She said that Omega meant the end. But to her it meant infinity since she didn't believe in ends. She only believed in new starts. It was her seventeenth birthday gift. Her dad came up to her and told her that he willed to name her after this letter, but her mom refused and called him a geek. He told her that she was the end of his confusion. The end of his anxiety. The end of his bad luck. She was a blessing that ended his old life to start another. The answer to his questions. He loved her. She said that she even felt like he loved her more than her mom. She never understood how since he got to willingly choose her mom but not her. Her parents loved her, and she loved them back. She was able to show them love; I didn't. I was a cold-hearted son. I took them for granted and was never thankful. I took and never gave. I deserve to be hated. Oh, I deserved to be left behind. But will karma show some mercy. Will you god?

I took the accessory with me to bed and tried to close my eyes. I wanted to recall a good memory that didn't have her. A day before her that I was enjoying. I came up too short. None. So I tried to sleep. For so long I laid there trying to shut my systems and pass out. But nothing happened either. I was still conscious and thinking. Thinking of everything that I am not supposed to. That's the thing about human brains: they are tricky, and they enjoy their own struggle. Try to shut a single thought away, and it will become the only thing you think of.

I kept protesting against that brain of mine till sleep overcame us both.