Author Information
Ache
Ache
By Muriel Palanca
Hell is loving someone. Hell is not a physical entity such as fire and brimstone, but more of a state of mind and a seduction of the heart. It is the compromise of ones own being for another. Love is a selfless act of sacrifice without reckoning that often leaves a person forsaken. There is no redemption from hell but the people who end up there do not know that. Hell is not only a place for the sinners but for the foolish. In hell, a person dies a slow death, immensely slow.
You see, time stops in hell. A thousand years of torment will not cause the hands of a clock to shift even a second. In a world of chaos and uncertainty, time gives people the illusion that they can control something. It is a way to measure eternity with grains of sand and numbers on a calendar. But time always keeps us waiting.
In hell, people sleepwalk through the deluded notion that someone will save them. They dream that, one day, someone will prove to them that their prayers were not unheard. Some say that hell is the absence of hope, but it is not. Hell is the presence faith that is slowly being corrupted by doubts of an aching heart. It is reality creeping into the bliss of ignorance as Eden becomes a barren wasteland.
Hell is the all consuming desperation that you are infected with when you have become addicted to someone. The devil is the dealer and that someone is your pretty little pill. That someone is your temporary high, your saving grace, your private poison and your downfall. They take away your pain for a moment, only to give you ten times more later. When all is numb, they give you the rush and adrenaline that shoots you straight up to heaven. And then you fall, with elegance and rapture as you descend into the underworld.
Hell is loving someone so much, you wish that you could hate them. You want to hate them until it makes you quiver and you can’t breathe. You want every cruel denial, every silent rejection to turn your heart into stone. You want to be so close to them, you don’t feel anything except cold. You want it to be easy to walk away, but it’s not. Nothing worth it is ever easy.
You are a junkie to that evanescent feeling of nirvana and would sell your soul just to have another taste. You are a slave to that fleeting moment of peace because nothing else is sweeter. You would do anything for it because all you want is more. He is everything that you were too afraid to want and never dared ask for. He is every good thing that you never deserved and are too selfish to resist. There is guilt of wanting something you can’t have, but the angel on your shoulder is giving in to temptation. Your quiet voice of reason beckons to you but the only thing you hear is you heartbeat screaming in your head.
Yes, hell is loving someone. It is the overdose of ecstasy that feels like being pulled apart inside. It is also quiet and unrelenting like a frozen lake on a winter night. On the surface, it is a flawless piece of glass in which your reflection stares back at you with apathy. The ice is deceptively still and unshakable, but if you don’t watch your step, you’ll end up drowning. You will freefall through the infinite black, always reaching for someone but never finding a hold.
It is a feeling of abandonment. Hell is cowering in the corner of an empty house that is decaying from within. The shutters are wind chimes that clatter against the paper walls as a beautiful day passes by. But you would never notice it because the windows are boarded up so that you never have to know what you are missing. The solitary beam of sunlight through the cracks is the only reminder that the world will never stop spinning when you want it to. Though years of neglect have worn away any warmth or hope, the door will always remain open because he just might come back for you. He is home to you and without him, there is no other sanctuary.
Hell is a prison that does not need bars or iron gates. The inmates are simply chained there by their unwillingness to move on and let go. Hell is waiting for someone to call you, to reach for you. So you sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. You are too afraid to leave because you want to be there if and when it finally happens. You become bound because it would kill you to miss what could be the most important call of your life. You never want to go through the agony of regret and asking “What if?”
Hell is losing yourself. It is the stripping away of your soul until you are no longer human. It is the unraveling of sanity and your will to live until you are nothing more than a distortion of what you used to be. Hell is casting your heart into the sea, hoping to never feel the bitterness and suffering that is accompanied by love. But all you end up doing is tasting the salt of your tears in the ocean.
With love comes understanding, acceptance, expectation and forgiveness. Understanding often leads to acceptance. Expectation is what causes the need for forgiveness. Forgiveness is the most important and also the most deadly. The things that most people forget to bring into a relationship are caution and a bulletproof vest. Some people give love thinking that they have absolutely nothing to lose. But loving someone gives you something to lose, everything to lose. It is a trick of the light in which you see what you want to see, a blaze of passion that leaves you blind. You jump from the edge, never noticing that it is a drop that ends with a rock solid kiss with the ground. By the time you realize that the scar is bleeding through, it is too late. The wound is too deep to ever heal.
Hell is a place for the lost causes. It is a place where denial rains on a ghostly day and the sound of thunder is a constant requiem to the lonely. It is a place where every resident carries a torch that will always burn for a person who has long since forgotten them. It is a place where destiny means fate and eternity really does mean forever. It is a place where the sun will never rise and mourning is the only promise kept.
When all is said and done, hell is just this: It is the moment of shattering clarity when you realize that, in the end, you are all alone. You are all alone.
