things that feel like other things

Falling in love feels like a gambling addiction. You keep winning at first so you keep giving in. Its nice, its fun, its lovely. Then it goes bad. Really bad. In the end you’re usually drowning in the debt of memories, in the wastage of time, in the pool of remembrance. Storms in the middle of June feel like summer 2016. Young and needy. Whispering gossip and a cranky fan. Feels like your mother’s slow breathing on the top of your head. The smell of wet metal and childhood. Dreaming of people you’ve lost feels like drowning. The screams are unheard, the movement is restricted. The water is so clear yet so heavy. You’re melting in to the mattress like wax. Jitters crawl up and up to wrap around your heart. You wake up in tears and hollow breath. Car rides at night feel like September 2024 in Jeddah. The air is humid, the music is loud and I want nothing more then the drive to stretch out. I want Canal Road to keep going and going till I’m dizzy and sick. I want to feel the hum of the engine until I shake even without it.

Watching the sunrise feels like my old school which started at 6:45 AM. Blaring white walls and glass offices. You could feel the wind best when standing in front of the long alley right beside the building. I use to scream the lyrics of A Thousand Years into it in 6th grade. My backpack leaning on my friend’s. Hers was red and shabby, mine was purple and shabbier. I’d lean on her shoulder in a similar way till her dad or my mom remembered to pick us up. I miss her shoulder. I miss the breeze. I miss the dusty ground. I miss those nauseating early mornings. I miss her the most. Looking at old photos feels like entering your old house. The furniture is gone, the walls cracked, the floor chipped. Some of the Ben 10 stickers are still on the doors, it might be the only recognisable thing there. Your home is now just a building. Just a room. You can recite every angle and maybe even recall what goes where but its still all gone. You can come back every night, but nothing will ever wait. No one will stay awake. The fridge will not light up. Thats the thing; you never meet the same person twice, not even in the same person. Home can be many places. But no home is the same.

My birthday always feels like my birthday in 2014. My dad had brought a three tiered, expensive chocolate cake. Even now when i imagine it I can tell it cost a lot. Probably tasted really good too. I threw a huge tantrum about it. I had imagined those ugly cinderella cakes. I cried and told him he ruined my birthday. I can still remember his head hanging as he quietly left, my mom following quickly behind. For a long time, I time stamped that as the moment he no longer liked me. I figured I’d broken his heart once so thats why he hated speaking to me. I never apologised, I think. Deers remind me of the time I was a deer for a play in Prep 1. I adored that play. I’d wear the thick costume even in scorching July heat. I think my mom had to throw it away to make me stop. The first boy I ever liked was in that play. He also just played an extra. There was a sequence where we’d all run away from the lion and jump behind a bush. The kids would usually just pile on top of each other and giggle. He was right before me so I’d usually be sitting on top of him. I always got irritated at the small space so he’d always try to distract me. He had big ears and a mole behind one of them. For some reason I found that fascinating. He let me look whenever I wanted. His name was Ali. I miss him sometimes. He was the kindest boy I liked. Maybe even the kindest boy I knew.

Feeling lonely is like when you lose your mom in the grocery store. Aisles and aisles of everything you could ever need. Candy, toys, food, birthday hats, makeup. Yet you keep circling around, each shelf like a dead end. Your eyes well up, strangers look but don’t help. Some will smile and try to calm you down, but it doesn’t fix it. You’ll keep looking. That urgency and edge of looking for something. Rounding every corner with the same prayer on your lips. That desperateness. Helplessness. Thats what loneliness feels like. Love can also feel like cold wind in the beginning of October. Like eating a perfect meal. Sunlight leavng your room in a golden hue. The pain in your ribs from laughing. The comfort of being known like a mother knows when the baby is hungry and when sleepy. It can feel like an apology. Like a spark in the dark, exploding into a firework.

Everything feels like something else to me. I compare to scale my reaction accordingly. How do we know how things feel, anyway? What is sadness to you? What is happiness? Is it a smile, a comment, or simply someone’s company? How does it feel, exactly? I always wonder if everyone feels things the same way. Is heartbreak like someone flayed you alive and left you to sew yourself back up for everyone? Does a friend asking if you’re okay make everyone stiffen? I guess thats why I compare feelings into things you can imagine. Single words like exhaustion and pride are too vague. I do not feel like a word. I feel like an event, like a song, like a scene in a movie, like a scent, like a time period. Although I have been told I feel too much and too deeply. That could explain it.

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Yes I quoted olivia rodrigo you cannot stop me. this is lwk such ass writing but im trying to escape this writers block so yolo. I love writing descriptive stuff and using like more than every other word combined. :)

ALSO I made a buy me a coffee! if you guys love me and dont want me to die pls consider supporting. promise ill put it to good use like buying a red bull or paying for thrifted skirts. love you guys!

Thank you for reading!