Added to MSR 030311
Originally written in 2003
Malaika sat there in the corner of her bathroom looking at her swollen wrists, then at the knife, then back to her wrists. She does not cry about the pain, but then she cries because she is a coward. She can not do it. But please send someone to save her, she feels alone. Her mother can’t even hear her pain, though she is just a few feet away from her, separated by the bathroom wall. Can her mother feel her despair? She needs someone by her side.
Earlier today, she felt like everything in her life was falling apart. But that’s it, she just felt it, but there was nothing going on to make her go through that pain. She was crying hysterically and couldn’t calm down. Is there anything wrong with me? she kept on asking herself. She was at work at that time and her co-worker brought her a bottle of Smirnoff beer, and she was downing it.
“I’m gonna kill myself tonight,” she told her co-worker. “I’m gonna go. At three in the morning, I’m doing it.”
Malaika left her workplace with her friend, Shonci, and when to her house to drink some more. She tried her best to soothe the ridiculous pain growing in her. Shoncie tried to drill sense into her, to kick her back to reality. She was listening. The alcohol was caressing her whole being, but her mind was still running.
“Baby girl, don’t sweat nothin’. You got a good life, you got a good home, you got a good man. You got everythin’ goin’ on for you. You young! You be stressin’ yourself too much, you gon’ get old too fast and have them damn wrinkles on your pretty face!” she said as she took a hit from her Newport cigarette.
Everything Shonci said was true. Malaika knows all these. She’s heard those words a million times from numerous people. But she never listened and that made her feel worse. I shouldn’t be feeling like this! she thought to herself. But she did. Those were times when she forgets about everything good in her life and a black cloud hovers over her, making her think that she is worthless, that she is alone, that there is no reason for her to live, that she is not loved, not even by herself.
She went home and lingered in her beautiful backyard. The lake was right in fron of ther and the wind was blowing through her hair. She admired the waves the lake was making and it hypnotized her for a second. She had a bottle of beer on her right hand, a cigarette on her left. She took out her cell phone and called her boyfriend. It was at one in the morning.
“Hello?” he said in a sleepy voice.
She was quiet for a moment, tears started to swell up in her eyes.
“Hello???” he said again.
“I wanna go away,” she said, her voice cracking.
“What do you mean go away? Go where?” he asked, puzzled.
“Somewhere, away from here… I’m gonna go.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t do this again… you’re smarter than this!” he said. She could hear from the slight raise in his voice, he’s alarmed and getting pissed.
“You don’t need me, you’ll go on without me, you don’t need me,” she kept on repeating herself.
“What makes you think I don’t need you? Why do you always act like this? What happened now?”
“Nothing happened!” she yelled, her voice trembling. “We both know for a fact that you don’t need me. Me, leaving you right now will not affect you in any way. I’m gonna go! You’ve never told me you needed me anyway.”
“I’ve tried to show you that I need you… isn’t that enough for you? Malaika, I need you! Please don’t leave me. I wanna see you tomorrow, alive,” he pleaded.
But no matter how sweet those words were, they weren’t enough to pull her feet back to the ground. Her head was still filled up with useless thoughts that cut through her like a knife. “Bye babe, you take good care of yourself. I love you, be happy.”
She hung up.
Now, as she sits there in the corner of her bathroom, she does not know what to do. She wants to die, she wants to leave everything behind. But she can’t kill herself. She is afraid. She does not know what’s going to happen if she does do it. She loves her family, she loves life… she just does not know why she feels like this over and over again. She tries to call different people, hoping someone would save her. But at three in the morning, nobody is answering.
I guess it’s time to save myself, she thinks as she slowly plants her feet back on the ground.