The blanket could only do so much to simulate a hug. The pressure could be provided with help and the warmth took a while to seep into the fibers.
But there's only so much you can do when you wish it were a person.
Emile wrapped her thin arms around herself, pulling the purple, pilled blanket tighter and trying to ignore the voices in her head.
I wish the blanket moved on its own. Maybe it squeezed me extra tight for a moment before rubbing my back. Maybe it kissed the top of my head and held me as I rocked back and forth and back and forth…
The blanket was no person; she was still alone.
"Can you hold me?" She whispered the words into the dark, into the emptiness before her that she reached through only to find nothing. Nothing and nobody. "Can anyone hold me?"
In the bunk below her, there were the soft inhales of her little sister sleeping and downstairs, the laughter of her parents. The sounds of life when she felt like she was dying from the inside out.
"Just hold me, please." Tears flooded her eyes and she pulled the blanket tighter, curling into a ball. The frail warmth of the blanket still felt too cold.
Words from her past filled her mind and she softly sang to herself, her voice a quiet echo in the dark.
"It feels like a tear in my heart like a part of me missing and I just can't feel it. I've tried and I've tried..." She rocked herself back and forth as she sang softly. "Tears on my face, I can't take it. If lonely's a taste then it's all that I'm tasting. Do you hear my cry?"
Her arms slid up to her shoulders, holding the blanket on tightly as she kept rocking, trying to hug herself. "I cry... can you hold me? Can you hold me? Can you hold me in your arms?"
Memories echoed in her head, taunting and nagging, and they nudged out a small sob. In Emile’s rush to cover her mouth, the blanket slid off her shoulders, falling in a sad little heap at her back. Wiping furiously at the tears, she bit her trembling lip, glaring at nothing in particular. "Go away," she hissed at the memories—at the feelings that made her feel so alone. “Go. Away.”
Hot tears dripped down her cheeks with the kind of fury her empty sadness could only dream to hold, racing each other as if dripping off her chin was their finish line—as if they couldn’t leave her fast enough.
The thought made her cry harder. No… come back. Don’t you leave me, too.
She closed her eyes tightly, the last tears squeezing out before they were stoppered in. “One day,” the words were spoken almost as if not to herself. “One day, I’ll have someone to hold me. And I can hold them back. And they’ll wipe my tears away and…” She shook her head roughly, a choked, humorless laugh escaping her. “Oh, who am I kidding. I’m hoping for too much.”
Her unfocused eyes looked out into the darkness once again, dry sadness where tears had once dwelled.
“Can you hold me? Just one time, in your arms?”
And for a brief moment, warmth surrounded her, and she finally felt held.
***
Can You Hold Me, NF & Britt Nicole
Estimated Time of Memory: Maybe I was 6 or 7. I have no idea.
Genre: Rap
Potential Triggers: None
Favorite Lyric: "Feels like a tear in my heart like a part of me missing and I just can't feel it. I've tried and I've tried. Tears on my face, I can't take it. If lonely's a taste then it's all that I'm tasting. Do you hear my cry? I cry."