Nothing silhouettes until the light comes on

The inside of my nose begins to sting, and immediately, I know I only have a couple of seconds to diffuse the situation. I rapidly blink, biting the inside of my cheek to direct the sharp sensation to another part of my face, but still, it feels as if I am breathing in too clearly, the air inside my nose a bit too fresh. In my comprehensive repertoire of physical feelings, the stinging is minimal. It doesn’t hold a candle to the pain in the permanent swell in my right ankle or the heaviness in the front of my head, a constant, benign thudding in my forehead threatening my eyelids to remain shut with every blink. But I know what it means, and the rampage of tears hover on the lower lash line of my eyes, dangling their feet off the cliff, taunting me with an impending bungee jump. It takes everything in me to dampen the onslaught of emotion. 

My palms begin to perspire as I let my book fall limp in my lap, obediently lying open to the page I was just reading. The seat under my thighs suddenly feels like cement, and the body heat of the person next to me becomes claustrophobic, and I have never been so desperate for teleportation powers so I could whisk myself off the train and into the comfort of my bed. It would not be the first time I’ve fallen victim to the pensive, wistful overthinking and daydreaming one tends to do on public transportation, specifically long car rides and on trains, but I was really hoping this would not be my new, recent pitfall. I dig my phone out from the depths of my purse, cautious of the flailing of my elbow so as not to be the reason for any casualties. My conscious catches up with reality before I even turn it on, registering the song that is playing through my earbuds. 

And in moments like these, I marvel at the human brain, at how much the subconscious controls much of what I do, much of what I think, and what I feel, because sometime over the past couple of years, a change in my psyche has Pavlov rolling around in his grave. My phone screen is lit up with the song, the song that has always triggered a sadness deep inside me, ignorant of whatever mood I may be in, and the plucking of the first few chords continuously undoes the stitches in the wounds of my tender heart. And though my conscience was buried in the words of my book, the melody seemed to weave its way in between the letters, making its presence known in the spaces of the paragraph, patiently waiting for me in the next chapter.

My thumb instinctively goes to skip the dreadful song (not dreadful as in terrible, because objectively, this song is a work of art. Dreadful in the way that the effort it takes to knock me off my pedestal is so meager, it’s almost embarrassing. Everyone has their vices; mine are not far and few between), but some invisible force doesn’t let me. I wish I could pretend not to know why, but there is no trust without honesty, and who would I be if I couldn’t even tell myself the truth? 

I let the chorus wash over me, close my eyes, let the sorrow behind her voice burn into the back of my eyelids, and once again, I can never ignore the sting in my nose. A tell-tale sign, the beating heart under the loose floorboards, a nostalgia buried deep under my ribs, and in the hollow of my stomach. And I don’t know what it is about sadness-- I have tried many synonyms in its place (anguish, grief, misery, melancholy, etc.), but there is something so pure and unadulterated about just feeling sadness in your bones. I am brought back to a place, unnamed, where living in this sadness was comforting, where the thought of “getting better” was laughable, where better days weren’t a reprieve but rather a blinding light that did nothing but set me on fire and burn my retinas. I am reminded of who I once was, I am reminded that my whole life is in me, and though on most days it is a beautiful recognition, today, on this subway car, it is a deathly feeling, that every pain and heartbreak and loss will never leave me. 

For three whole minutes, I revel in this hole I have made for myself, each beat of the song a punch in my gut as memories play in my head like a supercut, flashbacks of first kisses and last fights, my mom at the kitchen table, my dad in the driver’s seat, my sister at the end of the hallway, an old friend’s laughter, the sidewalk where I once left my heart, everywhere I have been plays in a loop in my head. I let myself listen to the song to completion, like finding closure in the ending of something. It lingers in my eardrums, whispers of goodbyes, a plane taking off, a door closing and finally locking, pressing the “end call” button, the last box out of an empty apartment, the edge of the sidewalk, a dead end. 

My eyes flutter open as the next song begins to play, and it feels like the last couple of minutes didn’t even happen, and all I have left of its proof of existence is the wetness on my cheeks and the last salty drops clinging to the corner of my eyes. I hastily wipe away the tears as if I’m trying not to get caught despite having done nothing wrong, but the shine on the back of my hands is irrefutable evidence of my crime. I try to play it off by looking at my book, still open on my lap, but the same sentence repeats itself over in my head until it begins to sound like a fly buzzing around my brain. I glance up, hoping no one witnessed the blitz of emotions that barraged me, but failing, I make eye contact with the lady sitting across from me. 

She offers me a smile, and it feels like a warm hug, one devoid of judgment, like my mother’s hand on my shoulder or a hot cup of tea on a blustery winter night. She does not hold it long; it is a quick greeting, an acknowledgement of my existence, and she looks away at her phone. But for a couple of brief seconds, our eyes held like a peace treaty, and in that moment, I couldn’t help but imagine she had been here before, and I wonder how much laughter has filled this train and how many tears have been shed here. I can’t help but wonder.