Hope

You don't know what's really happening. Are you insides being ripped out? Your body split in half? The weight on top of you. The stabbing inward motion and the ripping outward motion. The vomit your body produces when it stops. Red blood white sticky stuff. Insides? A mess. You are a mess. What is it that tells your soul this is all wrong and what is it that keeps you from stopping it?

You know what it's like to wake up one day and be smashed by a ton of concrete blocks with the realization that your life will never be the same. You have lost something; it has been stolen (but it has to be your fault somehow), and you will never get it back. It's gone. It's gone forever. There will never be another day when you live without guilt and shame and regret. And this guilt and shame and regret will slowly kill you. They will find a way. They will kill you by suffocation, injury, self destruction, and/or plain old pain.

It's frightening at first. The nights you fall asleep sobbing silently so no one can know your mistakes, because they wouldn't love you any more, would they? On these nights you wake up every hour, on the hour, and find yourself still crying and when the morning finally comes your pillow is soaked with salty tears and your eyes are dry and red and you want to start over. So you get up and get in the shower and cry some more because your face is already wet so it just seems natural that the inside wet would add to the outside wet.

You spend your day nervously counting down the hours until you have to face the night time again. Each passing hour the knots inside you get tighter and you start to panic because you know there is no stopping the coming of the night. The darkness is so cold. It feels like it's taking your breath. Painfully, forcefully yanking it out of you until you will suffocate. After you suffocate it will shove its icy, bony fingers into your chest and rip out your heart. You don't need it anymore do you. Without breath and without a heart you are only skin and bones.
You are missing the parts that make you human. You are no longer human. No longer alive. No longer innocent. No longer happy. No longer brave. No longer content. No longer safe. No longer ok. You are not ok.

Hope is when you meet someone for the first time and you look into their eyes and you know. You know that they have been to their own hell and though they will never know yours, they know what it's like to be there. In that split second of hope a million thoughts rush through your brain- can they ever know, can they ever love me, can they ever understand, etc. you pull your eyes away in case any of these things can be true. Or worse, what if they see you and they learn too much.

What if. What if they knew me, what if they loved me, and if they understood. Would I be redeemed? Could I be saved from my hell after all of this? Is there a shred of hope that could pick me up and make me brave? How much could being known or loved really do for me? And then you remember how selfish you are. You can't think about what you could possibly offer them because you're too frail. You coudln't be a valuable part of some other human's life anyway.

Maybe it's best to go away. Not go away walk out of the room and close the door, but go away and never come back. Really disappear. For good this time. Because it would be good. Even if all that was waiting on the other side was hell... well so what. You're already there. Might as well be in hell and not have to drag other people into it with you. Set them free from you. No more charity projects no more talks no more help no more sympathy no more pity no more disappointment no more failure. This is your one chance to right all the wrongs. Relieve them of you.

You must destroy yourself. Make it stop. Make you stop. You ruined them, life, you. If you destroy them you go to jail and it's harder to kill yourself in jail than when you're free. Oh to be free. To be set free from the shackles of shame and guilt and regret and fear and anger and pain. It hurts so bad. You love them with all your heart- you would rip it out of your own chest and give it to them, beating, bleeding, living, if it would help anything. If only they could see you and that last living piece of you- your heart. But it's too late. They have given up. And how can they be wrong about you- those people who fucked each other to give you life. You ruined them and any life you may have had with them. In another life maybe they could forgive you or allow you to share their name. Here your name is not theirs; you are all alone. You have no one left and although you would sacrifice yourself for any of these other human beings they reject your offering. So you go on your way, abuse a variety of substances, and hope it all ends soon. Hope. One last thing you are allowed to hope for. The end. You must destroy yourself. Make it stop. Make you stop.

So. You do what any sane human would. You stop yourself. Everybody does this in some way or another. It's quite normal, really. Food (or lack thereof), sleep, caffeine, sugar, Tylenol/Aleve/Ibuprofen, Ritalin/Seroquel/Adderall, busy-ness, razors on the skin, fingernails on the skin, thumbtacks or staples through the skin, nicotine, still lit cigarette butts on the skin, hot burner on the skin, alcohol (even that glass-of-wine-with-dinner), sex, music, dysfunctional relationships. The way your injury stings and throbs in teh shower the next day. The way your thoughts race and roar in your brain when you try to sleep. You can not trust yourself. You are not safe from yourself. You are not safe. We all trigger ourselves and attempt to medicate. Find something that soothes and salves. Make it feel better. When you medicate this is how it works: pain --> panic --> violence inflicted on you by you --> distraction --> endorphins so you're floating out of your stupid body --> relief --> loneliness --> fear --> guilt --> more grief. It is such an effective system. If only someone was here to share it with you. If only you weren't so fucking alone.

Your home is like a fucking psych ward. Your mom functions on valium and vodka. Any of them can turn on you and try to choke the life out of you if they decide you're not worthy. So fragile. It could all end so violently and so abruptly. Or they could just drown you in the pool like they tried to do 11 years ago. In any case, this won't last. You try to sleep here but wake to demons crawling over your still body. WHAT ELSE DO THEY WANT. They come with their charcoal pieces, searching for any bloody living part of you. Today all they find are the fresh wounds inflicted by you with the help of a razor. You love your razor. Perhaps that's what they've come for. If you could use the word "if" without hoping for something you'd say this: if only I could love and be loved. The kind of love that holds me in the dark and fights away the charcoal artists and the memories. Your past will never be the past until you are loved.