*Once again, this is not a piece I really like but I decided to try and make it a bit... more hopeful and happier than usual? Also, TW for self-harm.
1:24AM
Unexplainable emptiness, the lack of feeling sprawled over my body like an airy satin sheet— suspended in the air due to the lack of wind. Existence without any reasoning. I could think about the three tinder matches I have on my phone and the lazy excuse of an opening conversation they gave me, but it just makes me miss people in my life that are no longer here. The water in the toilet bowl is starting to slowly rise, if you take your eyes off of it and look back to check again, the water level is approximately two centimeters higher than what it was before. An hour ago, I tried to fix the issue with the toilet by taking off the oddly heavy cap that hid the mechanics of the somewhat simple contraction, but I didn’t want to shove my hand inside and so I put the cap back on and pretended that everything was okay. I then sat back down on my bed to think about things that I shouldn’t think about. I don’t know how the toilet started flooding but it doesn’t change the fact that it is. All I can do now is lay down in my silent glory, looking like a corpse inside of a coffin. Without purpose and with no use other than to be looked at and maybe have some pretty flowers around. Flowers, they’re beautiful. That’d be nice, the scene could be set up in a nice outdoor setting with my corpse in the front and some people in front of the body in a black and silver coffin with lilacs everywhere. Lilacs, maybe dahlias are better? Or daffodils, since my sister once called me a selfish little brat and it’d be quite befitting to put daffodils around my selfish little grey brat body. Apparently, if dogs eat them they die. What a pitiful kind of truth for such a pretty flower, but at least daffodils (or the narcissus flower) has its own purpose in its life (if it was to be consumed by a dog.) There really isn’t anything to think about before going to bed while the toilet overflows with no one to fix it.
5:04AM
Three nights ago, the toilet flooded my bathroom. My mother made her weekly visit to my apartment but she was looking weaker than ever. I think she’s 64 now, or maybe 68? The age is showing in her face, or at least I could tell when she came over. Everyone she has ever met compliments her on how young she looks, but they don’t know what she looked like when she actually was young— only I do, sort’ve. My sister knows better than I do, just like how she knows my mother better than I do since she’s older than me and had a head start. I wonder if my mother ever debates with herself on whether or not to check up on me. There are three possible outcomes if she visits: the possibility of seeing me happy with a clean apartment vs. the possibility of seeing my room a mess with clothes everywhere vs. the possibility of walking in on me with blood seeping through my shirt. A risky gamble, but she most likely feels indebted to her ancestors and herself to make sure I’m at least alive or that she’s the first person to find me dead rather than having a stranger find it (if they’ll ever make it in, and by that time my body will be quite ugly to look at.) She’s doing me a favor by checking in. Although prior to fixing the toilet (to the best that she could) she gave me an earful about taking care of myself through my surroundings, a speech I’ve heard since I was 14 until now, 27. When I was 18, she walked in on me crying over my dead boyfriend, and when I was 20 she walked in on me winning some sort of award for painting. I don’t remember the specifics of the award but it was the first one I’ve ever won. The last one I won was when I was 24. It’s a gamble for her every time she sees me. What mood will Ai be in today? Although recently, the odds have been the same. Even three nights ago, with water from the toilet seeping onto the carpets in my bedroom. Ai is just existing. Sometimes, my mother will walk into my apartment and open the curtains with plants in her hands in hopes of it brightening up the room and brightening myself up. It never works though, the curtains will always close after she leaves and the plants always die no matter how hard I try to keep them alive. Or maybe I’m just not doing it right? Regardless of what the problem is, I think she figured out that the dying plants only make me more depressed and piles up work for me so she stopped doing that and instead, just graces me with the reminder that I’m not independently living for myself. My mother is just another person in my life who I feel extra indebted to, and so when she frowns it hurts me in a way I forgot it could hurt. Except, of course, I’m reminded every month when she visits and I open the door to see her smile that turns into a frown when she gets her reminder of what her young daughter has become.
2:14PM
I think I was married before. I don’t necessarily remember because it was a short arrangement when I was still relevant to my family. I know they still care about me and love me, but I don’t know if they have enough energy to keep on doing that. My marriage was a test, to see if I was really an adult and able to take care of myself. Everyone my father knew wanted my hand in marriage— a young successful artist who could rake in millions if she shuts herself in a studio for a week. Who knows what she is painting, but critics like it and it helps that she’s pretty too. With a few vowels and consonants, my father intricately created a perfect bridal sales pitch for his business partners. What they didn’t expect was for me to become so useless. I never met my husband-- but on paper, we were married and then divorced. I think I should feel unwanted and sad about it, but my own failures are what makes me feel truly unwanted. Whoever he was, he didn’t want me for the very same reasons I don’t want myself. I don’t think about my brief marriage that often, but today it’s what I thought about when I forced my two feet to pretend they want to go somewhere and went to a coffee shop as all the other artists do. Maybe if I live like an artist, walk, talk, and act like an artist, I’ll be an artist again. I wish I could describe what the coffee shop looked like from the interior, but all I remember are the people and the brown everywhere and that’s it. All I remember and can describe is that there was a crowd, the aroma of coffee beans, and the constant ongoing sound of the coffee grinder doing what it’s made to do. I’m a painter, not a writer. I was a painter, and am not a writer. What I do remember, is that someone in front of me paid for my order, a small act of kindness. It gave me more purpose to drink the Americano that I don’t even really enjoy. Yet for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do the same for the person behind me. The barista didn’t look like they minded that I didn’t continue the cycle of kindness, and for some reason that felt more like an act of kindness than the supposedly free coffee in my hands.
I always go to the coffee shop by my apartment. It was fun until it wasn’t. When I was at the height of my career, people would recognize me and ask for a picture or make small comments about my art. I loved it and then hated it. It felt nice at first, to be recognized for my work. And then I realized the only reason they come up to me is for my art and not because they want to know who I am. And then they did want to know who I am, which oil tycoon heir I married and how my life is, and then I hated going to the coffee shop even more because I am more than just a successful woman. And then they stopped asking me and kept to themselves wondering if I just resembled Ai Miyazaki or if I really was her and what a shame it was that I stopped painting. And then they just stopped talking altogether. Little Ai, my sister would say, never satisfied with what she has.
4:44AM
It’s the third time this month that I’ve sat by my desk, knees bent with my toes on the edge of the wooden chair. The art supplies, little and big brushes dusty from the lack of use, sit mockingly in a cup made by a fan from four years ago. This is the only reminder of my success and failure in the apartment that is fully visible. The sketches, certificates, pictures— they’re all stashed in a dirty fish tank somewhere in some closet space. I know exactly where they are and look at them once every other week as a form of both self-torture and therapy, but I like to pretend that I don’t know where they are until I’m holding them in my hands remembering who I was and what I am now. Of course, the thought of burning and ripping them to shreds has come to mind before, but that’ll erase Ai Miyazaki’s existence completely and then there’s no legacy nor real merit for me to live anymore. This chair used to be my throne, with the brushes and pencils as my scepter and the canvas my land. Instead, they’re just plain objects with no meaning now. I don’t know why I haven’t put the brushes away yet. Maybe it’s because I still have hope for myself that I’ll pick them up and start painting again, but every day that I don’t… just makes it an antagonizing cycle of perhaps tomorrow with tomorrow never arriving. It’s a strong conflict of self-interest to sit in this chair, but this is the only place I can feel things: disappointment, guilt, a glimmer of hope, and then endless self-hatred with slashes from a blade. I never cut deep enough to kill myself. I don’t want to die, I just want to make something out of myself and create something, even if it’s just a feeling. If physical pain is all there is that can remind me that I am Ai Miyazaki, then so be it.
Inspiration. Where has this fickle woman gone? She only sees me when I bleed and when I bleed it feels like I can create something again, and so like the artists I’ve read about, I use my natural medium and behold: stick figures smiling while holding hands. I wonder what my sister is doing now, what my mother is thinking, and what my father is eating. Smiling, I look at the finger painted stick figures who are also smiling. Except I’m crying too, unlike the happy red figures. Look, it’s us. I should text them but I don’t.
A text lights up the screen on my phone that sits on the table. This sickly painting that looks like a kindergartener could’ve done just looks at me looking at it. This is the last of Ai Miyazaki. Ai Miyazaki, my mother named me love in Japanese. One day, when I die, people will look at this painting and see “raw emotion” then auction it off for a ridiculous amount of money because it could be the very last piece I’ll ever make in this lifetime. That’s Ai Miyazaki for you. My phone begins to ring and out of fear I pick it up, without checking the Caller ID.
7:18AM
“Ai-Ai! How are you? I miss you. I’m sorry for not calling you sooner. It’s been busy for me, but I thought of you and just wanted to call in and catch up!”
“Ah, I’ve missed you too.”
How silly of me. I’ve forgotten that I’m also Ai-Ai. Someone important enough for someone to call. Someone who is likable enough that blood isn’t the only reason they’d care about me. Someone that someone is thinking about. And just like that, I feel okay again. I feel like Ai Miyazaki again, and the paintbrushes are just paintbrushes again.
*Note: In Japanese, 4 is seen as an unlucky number because it sounds like “shi” which is the same pronunciation for 死, which means death. In a similar manner, 7 is seen as lucky due to Buddhist reasons and 8 is also considered as a lucky number since in kanji it’s written as 八, where the bottom is wide and is associated with growth, wealth, and prosperity.
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