A song saved her, she wished she could do the same.

She was there, as was he, and you. You all looked at her as she could not move.

People said that "being late for your own funeral" was the worst, yet the feeling sinking,

d e e p e r

and

d e e p e r

was of rot, of desperation, of wanting to claw out of her own skin!

"I can't breathe," was all she said.

She meant that she couldn't move, she could cry, she could slip out of this uncomfortable skin.

There was a point where the pain, the enternal tiredness of it all made her want to jump, to cut,

to drown,

to burn,

to hang.

Anything, anything, please, just no more pain.

Looking at herself, the image in the mirror didn't change yet she felt it shift and become more alien like it was going to melt and peel off all at once.

Have all sort of unmetionable things underneath to drop into the sink.

There are days where she wished she could pull out a tooth with pliers,

just to feel pain (with blood) and (real) relief for her (actual) tears.

Then there was a song that played.

"I'm tired of being what you want me to be

Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface

I don't know what you're expecting of me

Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes"

It plucked something in her,

radiating and vibrating away the pain for a moment,

as if it was scrubbing away the pain.

Her labored breath forgotten, she tuned to listen.

"I've become so numb, I can't feel you there

Become so tired, so much more aware

By becoming this all I want to do

Is be more like me and be less like you..."

Ah there was the word, the magic phrase that made tears hot, burning, rush down her flesh. But it was relief, it was relief.

She never thought the pain was natural, the tiredness imaginary. But now she had proof. She had another voice sing what she had felt all this time, turning into beat, turning into words.

She had never heard of this song except now, never heard this band until today, but she loves them. She is a die-hard fan. She writes the name of the group and the song onto her hand with a pen, holding that pen close to her heart.

There are days where she is sure that her eyes will fall out of her head and crack open like spoiled eggs.

She plays the song loud enough to rattle the bones in her head.

There are days where she has no strenght to even open her eyes, dreading seeing a perfcet sunny day that will make her scream and scream in abject horror.

She does get up,

only to play another song and snuggle deeper into the bed, letting the song lull her into sleep where she dreams of running wild like wolves.

When the anger, hot, boiling, rolls through her and she wishes to taste blood and feel rended flesh underneath her nails.

She sings along,

eyes closed,

not caring if she looks like she is dancing badly.

She screams in joy when she cathches a song on the radio,

or when she finds a friend or family has them.

Soon people say that her eyes twinkle at the darkest lines,

that her voice joins along the recorded others, that her cheeks are rosy for once when she is not sick.

She only smiles, there is nothing that could hold her now. The rotting is still there,

still skin deep,

but she is bubbling it away.

Pulling it out of her being like popping an abscessed tooth and draining it.

It hurts the same, the relief is just the same.

She wished, if there was a chance to become famous,

that she would hug each person who saved her that day,

with that first song.

She wants to thank them and tell them she owes them her life for curing the pressure of unshed tears.

She finds now that one of them is dead, many years later, so many songs later.

She still has the rotting, she will admit. But there is a freshness there. T

here is an answer within her.

But now someone is gone before she could say thank you, before she could even meet them the first time.

She plays that song again, then the next one she found, then the next, all on an old beaten phone that has seen better days.

She wants to cry, but she does not.

Instead she says thank you as each song ends.

She thanks them for singing,

she thanks them for reaching out with thier words,

she apprecaites them being alive in her time.

When her old phone finally winds down,

she is singing along, her voice broken as the tears she tried to keep back are rolling forward.

She wished that her voice,

young and broken when she first heard them,

could have reached out to touch them,

that relief to know that someone understands the unnatural pain and tiredness,

the neverending pressure to cry at happy moments,

and scream at sunny perfect days when all you want is to be gone.

That her voice could have said all the words they needed to hear, to get them to cry and step back,

to listen to more voices,

like her.

Like them,

singing it all out to touch others the same way.

But there is no time for what-ifs.

She will meet them again, for the first time, in another life.

For now, she plays the song again, for them, and she sings.