Previous Chapter:
_____________________________
Pages That Bled
It started with a blank page.
Not because I planned to write.
I was just cleaning. Sorting through drawers that hadn’t seen light in months.
And there it was -- a half-used notebook, the kind I’d once bought with the intention of becoming better.
Funny how we buy healing in the form of pages.
I almost threw it away.
But something in me paused.
I sat down, opened to a fresh sheet, and held a pen.
It had been so long since I’d written anything that wasn’t a to-do list or a half-hearted reply.
The page looked at me like it was ready.
So I wrote.
“I don’t remember when exactly I began to fade.
But I do remember the first time I felt invisible in a room full of people.
I remember pretending to be okay so well, even I started to believe it.
I remember how the silence inside me got louder than any noise outside.”
The pen didn’t stop after that.
The words came in waves.
Unfiltered. Misspelled. Raw.
Not poetry. Not polished.
Just truth.
“I hated waking up.
Not because I wanted to die.
But because I didn’t know how to live anymore.”
I wrote until my fingers ached.
Until tears blurred the ink.
Until the page became a mirror I had never dared to look into before.
And somehow, in seeing my pain in black and white, it felt… less monstrous.
More human.
I wasn’t weak.
I was grieving.
Grieving for who I had been.
For what I had endured in silence.
That night, I didn’t cry myself to sleep.
I just slept.
Not peacefully. Not entirely.
But softer.
And the next morning, I opened the notebook again.
Not to relive the pain --
But to honor it.
To make space for the parts of me I had silenced for too long.
The act of writing didn’t fix everything.
It didn’t erase the past.
But it gave my pain somewhere to go.
And in that small act of release…
I felt a little lighter.
Not healed.
But healing.
Ashes and After : 9 The Space Between
Previous Chapter: https://www.chatzozo.com/forum/threads/ashes-and-after-8-the-ghost-room.62209/ ______________________________________ The Space Between There’s a difference, I’ve come to learn. Loneliness and being alone. They’re not the same. Not even close. Though they wear the same...
www.chatzozo.com
Pages That Bled
It started with a blank page.
Not because I planned to write.
I was just cleaning. Sorting through drawers that hadn’t seen light in months.
And there it was -- a half-used notebook, the kind I’d once bought with the intention of becoming better.
Funny how we buy healing in the form of pages.
I almost threw it away.
But something in me paused.
I sat down, opened to a fresh sheet, and held a pen.
It had been so long since I’d written anything that wasn’t a to-do list or a half-hearted reply.
The page looked at me like it was ready.
So I wrote.
“I don’t remember when exactly I began to fade.
But I do remember the first time I felt invisible in a room full of people.
I remember pretending to be okay so well, even I started to believe it.
I remember how the silence inside me got louder than any noise outside.”
The pen didn’t stop after that.
The words came in waves.
Unfiltered. Misspelled. Raw.
Not poetry. Not polished.
Just truth.
“I hated waking up.
Not because I wanted to die.
But because I didn’t know how to live anymore.”
I wrote until my fingers ached.
Until tears blurred the ink.
Until the page became a mirror I had never dared to look into before.
And somehow, in seeing my pain in black and white, it felt… less monstrous.
More human.
I wasn’t weak.
I was grieving.
Grieving for who I had been.
For what I had endured in silence.
That night, I didn’t cry myself to sleep.
I just slept.
Not peacefully. Not entirely.
But softer.
And the next morning, I opened the notebook again.
Not to relive the pain --
But to honor it.
To make space for the parts of me I had silenced for too long.
The act of writing didn’t fix everything.
It didn’t erase the past.
But it gave my pain somewhere to go.
And in that small act of release…
I felt a little lighter.
Not healed.
But healing.
