If love were a disease, I wouldn't be here. I'd be up in the clouds, far, far away from this cold stone hell I'm in. I'd have wings on my back, smiling and flying towards the sun that mocks me from above. I'd be able to crush the lock on my window and touch, feel, be those shining rays of light that fall upon me.

If love were a disease, I wouldn't be here.

I'd be free.

❦

I love flowers. It's one of the only things that I can stand to love nowadays.

They grow in gray chains around my room, etched in by my own hand and encircle the vicinity. Sometimes I imagine that they can come to life and stretch out from these gray walls. Their petals will grow and turn white; the stems that vibrant green that I have always hoped they would be. I'd feel the petals, the soft silk growing from within.

It would be the only real thing that I have ever touched.

But, then again, it's my fault that I can't touch anything that's actually real now. I drove myself insane. I was forced into this cell two years ago, slammed onto the rickety, uncomfortable bed, scolded not to dare move anywhere anymore; it's no use. The doctors told me that everything was going to be fine, they were going to take care of me until I was better, or, in my opinion, dead and frail and old and weak. I'd be here for eternity. 

I always thought eternity looked a hell of a lot more colorful. Right now, eternity looks like this small and simple hospital room, complete with a desk, one window, one bed, and one Mae Woo. This is eternity. My eternity.

But, don't worry about me. I'm not completely alone. 

I have my drawings to keep me company.

For the last two years, I needed something to keep me from jumping out the window and plummet to my untimely death. I kept myself content with pictures. I painted and drew and etched on anything that had a canvas. Last year, I found a sharp enough stick that when you have just the right amount of pressure and delicacy, you'll find a small dent on the wall. All four walls that encircle my room are filled with all kinds of drawings - names, flowers, clouds, plants, trees, anything. I even have one wall dedicated to looking like the outside world that I once knew. Behind the headboard of my bead are trees. Thousands of them. Rising from the ground and looming majestically over my head. They're my guardians who protect me from the evil outside.

I like my trees. They're mine.

Eventually, I ran out of space on the walls and had to look for another place to draw and create. Can you guess?

Well, I'll tell you anyway.

I draw with silver and it comes out red. Dozens of small, straight, red paintings run up and down my arms. I admire them every single minute. I make sure to run my fingers over all of them, loving the smooth roughness on my skin. Patricia, my nurse, saw this and gasped in horror before immediately slipping on a huge sweater two sizes too big over my head. I've worn it ever since.

I don't know why she was so worried. It's art.

The pain felt good.

❦

Even if I've been in this prison for so long, the nurses here are still afraid of me. That's why they're afraid to feed me.

I don't really mind, anyway. They think that I'll jump up from the thin mattress and descend upon them and soon, they'll find the poor girl dead and ripped and her neat and ironed uniform drenched in blood. I may be crazy, but I'm not some sort of vampire.

Gale usually feeds me, but the tendrils of conversations that creep through my door tell me that she is out on vacation, so the newest girl - whose name I don't bother to know - has to give me my daily tray of food. When the nurse comes in, I keep my head down and my stare is directly focused on my bare feet going tap, tap, tap. My skin slaps the linoleum as the new girl inches in. It's obvious she's scared: the tin full of strawberries is shaking badly. The girl probably heard about my supernatural abilities and is petrified to even glance at the black mop of hair covering my head. Ever so gently, she places the plastic tray on the tiny wooden table in the corner of my room. For a moment, she looks at the tally marks dominating the wood before dashing out of the room, the door slamming behind her. The table is just another one of my canvases, but it's one I refuse to look at.

The table is filled with his name. 

Different styles. Different fonts. But, it's full of him. From my first few days here, when the sun was mocking me and the laughs outside sounded like witches' chants, I was still going crazy and drove myself completely and utterly mad. I used my bare nails to scratch that devil's name into every square inch of the wood, sobbing hysterically and ripping out the splinters that decorated the skin of my fingers. You can still see the bare patches in which my tears stained it - ugly, big, and pale craters that dug into the brown. It's almost as if acid seeped through the wood. Avoiding the stare of the table, I grabbed the lone tray off the bare wood and began to eat, silently and quietly.

My life is beginning to look like the small bites that I've taken out of the strawberries. It's as if the universe is biting into me, relishing every single flavor that explodes into their mouth. Though I am struggling under their bite, I am screaming and clawing at their as my delicate, thin and frail form is being crushed into bits and pieces. Soon, I will be no more than digested bits in a person's stomach. I will be forgotten.

I'd rather be forgotten than known at all.

As I sit in the ratty cot, bathed in loud silence, I notice a pair of brown eyes looking through the pane of glass attached to my door. At first, I shrug it off. All of the nurses in the hospital have brown eyes. I look deeper, and I realize that I would know those eyes from anywhere. My breath catches in my throat. Two words repeat itself over and over in my head.

It's him.

Lee Taemin. The man who drove me insane.

It's hard to imagine that I am looking into the eyes of my past lover, who whispered love into my ears and sang to me under the stars. He was the one who danced with me that September night and held me when I would cry out from my reoccurring nightmares. Him, who has probably erased the matching tattoo that we had gotten together. Him, whose mind must've shaken Mae out of his memory. Him, who let the doctors drag me out of his apartment and watched me go.

Him, who loved me.

I choke back tears as I stare at him. Those are not those warm, chocolate brown eyes that looked at me with such passion; such desire. The smile that used to be on his face twenty-four seven is gone and replaced with dull pale lips. I don't even recognize him anymore. It's as if Taemin's eyes are just glass domes, hollow and empty.

I watch him get dragged away from that tiny window and his footsteps dissolve into nothing as I hear him fade away. Isn't that all he's done? Fade like the sunset; vanishing, disappearing under an artist's hand until my Taemin is just a smudge on the paper, no longer a beautiful drawing but a dull sketch. My mind will not budge from the memory of Taemin's blank and unknowing stare. The man that stared at me was a stranger. My Taemin has slipped from my fingers like grains of sand dropping back onto the beach.

Lee Taemin was never mine in the first place.

❦

It is time to go to the bathroom.

Over the years, the nurses have decided that I'm not all insane and have trusted my half-sanity, letting me go to the bathroom by myself. I have not told Patricia or Gale or anybody about the events of yesterday, yet I still feel his presence hovering somewhere around me. My Taemin is a lingering shadow that watches over me; an angel in the dark clouds.

But the events of yesterday have broken me once more.

As I exit my hospital room, I am hit with the overwhelming aroma of the hospital: a mixture of death and cleansing wipes, a deadly fume. For once, I ignore the toxic smell. I'm too focused on my fingers nervously clenching the hem of my itchy sweater and my knuckles that are quickly turning white. My nurses notice but they do not say anything - like always. Instead they glance at me as my bare feet slap the tile and gossip even more. Whispers of conversations make their way over to me.

"Such a beautiful young woman."

"Pathetic."

"She could've done much better."

I clench my teeth as that spark of anger ignites again and I hurry my footsteps closer closer closer to the stairwell that leads to the showers. Usually I would bathe myself immediately. I would find an extra sliver of soap in the drain and let the water run down my skin. Maybe, if I feel really depressed and worthless, I'd just sit in the corner, hug my knees to my chest, and sob like a little girl whose doll's head got ripped off by the neighborhood bully.

Come to think of it, I'm depressed and worthless every day.

Today is different, more different than other days. My feet beat rhythmically against the plastic stairs as my body unknowingly ascended up the winding stairwell to the rooftop. As I push open the door - nobody bothers to lock it nowadays - I am hit with the strong sense of blue and white dancing across the sky. I close my eyes against the sun, its rays of light hitting my face and I can touch it, feel it, be those shining tendrils again. The wind whips against my face and the cool breeze somewhat calms me, and I outstretch my arms, letting the feeling of reality slam into me. I stand there for a few moments and savor the sweet goodness.

I smile for the first time in two years.

A shame. The last time I ever will.

Ever so slowly, I inch closer and closer to the edge of the rooftop until I'm standing so close to death, so close to a sad end. I direct my gaze downwards towards the ongoing traffic that is polluting the streets. I'm slightly unsure about my next decision, shifting my weight on both feet. My mind once again shifts back to Taemin's empty gaze, blank and lifeless. I think to myself, He must stare at me that way because I am no longer his. He has someone else now; he doesn't need me. I chant this over and over again. My temporary mantra.

If Taemin does not love me, then he does not need me.

Nobody needs me.

I close my eyes.

I sigh, bring one foot over the edge of the border, and I fall.

I am falling down, down, down. I am spiraling down into my deepest and darkest sorrows and when I reemerge from that thin veil of chaos, I'll be in my one happy place, where I truly belong.

I think to myself, I wonder if he's thinking of me right now.

Life seems endless for five pure seconds, and soon, the world explodes into light.

❦

Love is a disease. I am no longer a speck of dust on Earth's surface. I am far, far away from the cold, stone hell I once lived in. Wings are sprouting from my back and I am smiling brightly, flying towards that big ball of energy. I have crushed the lock on my life and I am able to touch, feel, be those shining rays of light falling upon me.

Love is a disease. I am no longer there.

I am free.