I don't feel like myself when I am under the weather.
Grey clouds looming over the sky are not just metaphors, but actual clouds casting darkness upon my heart. And when the wind blows cold, I feel the chill from the tips of my fingers to the empty spaces between my rib bones.
I suppose the one upside to it is that I never have to try and make sense of my feelings on my own––the troposphere is already doing that for us both. If one day I wake up and see it's dark outside, I will draw the blinds and retreat into the dark corners of my own mind. Until you came along, and brought a piece of the sun with you.
These are days where my body stays burrowed under the weight of multiple blankets trying to barricade it from the cold. There is a tug-of-war in my head between darkness and light, and I desperately try to focus what little energy I have for light to triumph. It's exhausting. I was about to admit defeat when your name lights up the screen of my phone.
“I want to see you.”
“Please don't. I'm sad right now and I have nothing good to offer you when I'm sad.”
“You're already good as you are.”
I end the call abruptly and feel the cold immediately seep back under my skin. Even just your voice, no matter how thin and distant through the speakers, gives me warmth. But I am still so overwhelmingly cold that I am afraid when you touch me it will be you who freezes instead of the ice melting. I will only bring you down. We cannot fight the laws of physics, and as such, we cannot fight against the passage of time.
And as with all things, this feeling too shall pass.
It must have been a little less than an hour later when I am jerked awake from the numbing comfort of my bed by a knock on my door. Three raps, followed by three beats of silence, then another three raps. I drag myself out of bed, across the cold ceramic floor, and opened the door.
“I'm here.”
Yes, you are. Warmly wrapped in your cobalt blue cardigan that I love so much because of how blue it is. Like your hair that one summer, or the specks in your eyes when the sunlight hits them. You are out of breath. You ran six miles to see me. And you brought with you a piece of the sun.
There is a patch of ground under your sneaker-clad feet illuminated by a shaft of light, that gradually gets wider and wider until it bathes you in warmth. You squint your right eye and your whole face scrunches up cutely like that of a rabbit's. You offer me your hand.
The clouds make way for the sun again. The grey dissolves into clear blue. The light in my head glows bigger and brighter. I reach out to you, for warmth, for comfort, for goodness. You take me by the hand and I feel the ice melt away. It is spring in my heart once again, and to the warmth of your smile, the flowers bloom.