Standing on the Outside

I arrived at the front of my house, my bag slung over my shoulder. For a moment, I just stood in front of the chicken wire gate, one hand rested on the wooden frame. I sighed, letting the cool breeze caress my hair as I prepared myself. Life wasn't what it used to be. I saw a shadowed silhouette through the stained curtains as someone walked past.

Finally, I begun towards the door, pushing the squeaky gate open, I walked up the steps. Pushing the splintered oak door open, I stepped inside.

I hated coming home.

I was greeted by the pungent smell of cigarettes which stained the discoloured carpets. And the usual smell of alcohol, the house reeked of it.

"Why are you so late, boy!"

It was my old man. He was sitting in the front room on his recliner. I didn't need to look, I knew what he would look like at this time of day.

He would be slouched back in his chair, his belt buckle undone, his hairy beer gut showing. There would be familiar brown bottles littered around his chair, some of its contents spilling onto the carpet as he sipped another. His face would still be gruff and unshaven, his singlet covered in crumbs. He was watching American Chopper. I wish it wouldn't finish, that way I'd never have to deal with him.

My muscles began to tense. Just being around him agitated me these days. Wordlessly, I continued forward down the corridor, unslinging my bag and letting it drop to the ground. Rays of light slithered through the blinds, casting long shadows across the room. I walked down past the kitchen, towards my room, where the ritual would begin. These days I tried to spend as much time as possible away from my parents. I loathed my dad, and as for my mother...

Just being around her was depressing. It wasn't like she wanted me around anyway. She would look at me with those vacant eyes. The rims of her eyes were always decorated in purple and black. She didn't smile anymore. She used to, back in the day. When life was 'normal'.

She was now a distant stranger to me.

I gazed at my Metallica poster as I the door to my room swung closed, it was pretty tattered. With a sigh I collapsed into my bed, the wire springs under the mattress creaked under the weight. I stared blankly at the pale roof above me. Cracks webbed across the ceiling, and some pieces had fallen off completely.

Just like me.

Life doesn't make sense.

I don't understand what people like about it. My teachers would say, "Josh, why don't you do your homework!" "Josh, leave him alone!" "Josh, if you do that one more time!" I don't understand, what did they see that I didn't that made them care? For some time, I felt as if life was not worth living. I nearly ended it all.

I heard voices outside my room. Already they were beginning to fight. I sat up, casting an eye across my room. My gaze stopped at the photo frame on my bedside table, which shone in the evening sunlight. It was the only picture frame in my room. I picked it up, staring at the photo behind the cracked glass. The colour was faded and had begun to wash away. Probably from being in direct sunlight for too long.

I wish she was still here, I thought as I gazed longingly into the photo. It was a picture of my older sister, my only sister. My best friend. The photo was taken several years ago now. It wasn't an exciting photo, it was just a picture of her holding onto a basketball, her deep brown hair flailing in the wind. She was smiling broadly, her gleaming white teeth showing. We all used to smile back then.

I wish she was still here.

When she died everything changed. I was only six at the time. I didn't even understand what had happened. I had thought she was just ill.

"She is dead, don't you get it! She isn't coming back! Not now, not ever!"

As those words left my father's mouth, it finally began to sink in. My old man relied on alcohol and cigarettes to quell his depression. He become violent; mum's eyes were always rimmed with purple and black after that. Her once vibrant and excited hazel eyes became vacant and bloodshot. Sometime's my old man would take it out on me instead.

Those were bad times. It wasn't long before I had no friends, I had driven them all off. That fact took me forever to figure out. A six year old who didn't have a friend in the world.

After a while I found out how to deal with it all.

To stop caring.

To stop caring about everything.

My teachers would yell at me, "It is not okay to hit people!"; "Josh, do you want a detention?"

What did I care.

They were wasting their time, I wasn't going to change back. The world is painful when you 'care', you feel alone, in a constant state of depression. The emotions swell up inside of you; like a surging pressure cooker. The hate, the anger, the loneliness, the envy and everything else would boil up inside of you. Until finally it would all implode inside of you, tearing away everything that made you, you.

Although, once I stopped caring, life became easier.

Life became bearable.

I wish I could have my family back.





This story is my perception of how some troubled teens may feel about the world. In my eyes, the key to truly understanding such people is to understand their perception of the world. Only then, can you do anything constructive to help them. This story is fictional, if you are wondering.
"Invalid Item"