Regrets

I don't sleep much anymore - not because of insomnia, not really anything like that. It's more like sleep forgetting to visit me. My brain begs me to keep by blinds open to let the sickly green light from streetlamps spill onto my ceiling. In a way, it comforts me. But I desperately wish it wasn't. But when I don't let it in, the violet comes later - I get these fucking migraines again, creeping up on me like an old lover with too many promises and broken teeth. The green says to "stay awake", while the violet says "surrender." Nightly, my psyche is pulled between them. A tug-of-war of gods I thought I buried.

I saw her again. Not the version of her that walks and talks now—but the real one. The one who used to laugh in grocery store aisles, who used to braid my hair too tight and blessed a world owned by something sacrilegious. She's merely a phantom now. A memory with too much warmth to feel fake, but too distant to still be alive. I remember the bruises she wouldn’t admit were bruises, the blankness that crept into her eyes under her smile, rotting with blood long since spilled on that canvas. I didn't stop it. I didn't even try hard enough. I caused it. I thought she'd bounce back. I thought the god of light in my life was supposed to be untouchable.

That's the real sin of this all, is it? I became something so divine - briefly, gloriously. My skin humming like a harp's angelic melody. My voice gifted the ability to split rooms. I could twist perception with a glance, and for one delirious stretch of days, I knew what it was to have unwritten unspoken rules. I was a god of the in-between. The god of "what if". But I wasn't kneeling at the god's mercy to help her. I used it to try to win matches. I used it to be adored. I used it to get better shoes. I used it to box with god.

When it left me, I... unstuck. Time folding wrong now, I keep tasting copper when I hear the wind blow. My memories bleeding into each other like watercolors dunked too long. I’m still speaking to her, even though she’s never in the room. I say things I never said—things I wish I had. And sometimes I see her eyes flash green. Other times, they’re violet. But when I see red... that’s when I scream.

I don’t know which regret is killing me faster: the guilt of leaving her behind, or the loss of that power. Maybe they’re just the same thing talking to each other. Maybe I only became a god because I failed her. Maybe that was the punishment disguised as glory.

Last night, I saw the sky split right down the middle. Green on the left, violet on the right. I swear they were talking to each other. Arguing about me. My name echoing in colors I can't pronounce.

I keep trying to blink it away, but my eyes won't close anymore.

If you've seen the golden light in your mirror's reflection, if you can't go one cup of coffee without seeing what could've been someone else's dreams - please tell me.

Am I the only one left who remembers her laughing?