I sat on the edge of the narrow, rusted bed, the springs groaning beneath my weight. The mattress was thin, the fabric stained with the passage of too many troubled occupants. I didn’t feel safe in this room, but then, I hadn’t felt safe in a very long time. My hands trembled as I drew my knees up to my chest, trying to make myself smaller, to disappear into the shadows that clung to the corners like cobwebs.
The room was a tomb, and I was its latest occupant, buried alive in a crypt of my own making. The walls seemed to close in a little more with each shallow breath I took. I wanted to get up, to walk out, to leave this place far behind, but my body refused to obey. It was as though the weight of my sins had chained me to the spot, a tangible heaviness that pressed down on my chest until I thought my lungs might collapse.
Do our saviors die too soon? The thought came unbidden, a whisper of despair in the back of my mind. I had been raised on stories of redemption, of a love so powerful it could conquer death itself. But where was that love now? Where was the hand to guide me through the darkness, to lift me from the depths? My faith, once a blazing fire within me, had dwindled to little more than embers, glowing dimly in the night.
“Oh, I can’t breathe,” I murmured, the words barely audible even to my own ears. The air was stale, recycled a thousand times by the invisible inhabitants below. I could feel their breath mingling with mine, a macabre communion of the living and the not-quite-dead. All I knew was that I had forgotten how to be me, how to exist outside of this room, this prison of my own making.
Hallelujah, where is my God, where are you? The plea rose within me, a desperate cry for salvation that seemed to bounce off the walls and return to me, twisted and mocking. I had sung those words once, in a place filled with light and hope, my voice joining with others in a chorus of faith. But now, the hallelujahs turned to ash on my tongue, a bitter reminder of what I had lost.
Nothing was pulling me through, no divine intervention, no miracle to part the seas of my despair. I was alone, utterly and irrevocably alone, with only the ghosts of my past for company. They whispered to me in the darkness, voices filled with accusation and regret, reminding me of every wrong turn, every missed opportunity, every moment of weakness.
Hallelujah, when I don’t know how to be. The words were a lament, a mourning for the person I had once been, before the world had stripped me bare and left me shivering in the cold. I had forgotten how to laugh, how to dream, how to reach out and touch another human soul without flinching away. The very essence of who I was had been lost in the labyrinth of my mind, leaving behind a shell, an echo, a thing of shadows and dust.
Hallelujah, I forgot how to be me. The admission was a surrender, an acknowledgment of my brokenness. I had been searching for myself in the faces of strangers, in the bottom of bottles, in the pages of sacred texts, but I had come up empty every time. The person I had been was gone, and I did not know how to begin the journey of becoming someone new.
And yet, even in the depths of my despair, there was a spark, a stubborn, flickering flame that refused to be extinguished. It was the part of me that still yearned for light, for air, for freedom. It was the part of me that still believed, against all odds, in the possibility of redemption.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to draw strength from the very walls that seemed to imprison me. The bodies beneath the floorboards breathed with me, a chorus of the damned that was somehow less terrifying than it was comforting. We were all in this together, lost souls adrift in a sea of sorrow.
And then, with a trembling hand, I reached out and touched the wall. The paint was cool beneath my fingertips, the texture rough and uneven. I could feel the echoes of pain, yes, but there was something else there too, something I had not expected. Beneath the bruises, there was resilience, a stubborn refusal to crumble, to fade away.
I let my fingers trace the patterns of wear and tear, the scars that told a story of survival. And as I did, something within me began to shift, a subtle realignment of my spirit. The room was not a tomb, I realized, but a cocoon, a place of transformation. I was not buried, but planted, and even now, there were roots beginning to stir in the darkness.
Hallelujah, I whispered, and this time, the word was not a question, but a declaration, a statement of faith in the face of doubt. I did not know where my God was, but I knew that I was not alone. I knew that even in this room, with its bruises and its bodies and its breath that was too loud, there was hope.
Hallelujah, I said again, and this time, I believed it. I believed that I could find my way back to myself, that I could learn how to be me once more. It would not be easy, I knew. There would be days when the darkness seemed too thick to penetrate, when the voices of the past would rise up to drown out my own.
But I would not give up. I would not surrender to the despair that clawed at my heart. I would stand, and I would fight, and I would sing my hallelujahs until they rang true and clear and strong.
And one day, I would walk out of this room, out of this tomb, and into the light. One day, I would breathe freely, and I would remember who I was, who I am, who I will be.
Hallelujah.
R.M Anderson 2023
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