Constant Conflict

    You fall for what is most likely the millionth time in an endless amount of time. You don't know how long you've been here. How long you've been fighting to move forward, to reach whatever is on the other side. You don't know. You just focus on the end goal, whatever that may be.
    So you struggle to slowly drag one of your hands from your sides, the better one. This one is only covered in bruises, speckled across your skin like sprinkles on ice cream. All of them different shades of purple and blue. After many grunts and lots of effort your arm is near your face, so now you work with your other more broken hand.
    This one is covered in lacerations, varying in length, but all slowly leaking blood. You're pretty sure your pinky finger is broken on this hand as well, so you try not to move it.Still the pain overwhelms you, forces you to grit your teeth, until both hands are near your head. Now the tough part begins.
    You put both your palms on the floor and try to slowly lift yourself from the ground. It's a painstakingly slow process and you bite your lip to keep yourself from screaming. Two broken ribs and plenty of bruises and cuts go a long way to add to your pain. Still you manage to get on all fours, where you hang your head and try to take as many shallow breaths as possible. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on breathing not on the pain.
    Now comes the most difficult part. You steady yourself, take in a single breath before you quickly and very painfully stand. The motion is simple but you scream your lungs out as soon as your standing. Your legs shake as they hold you up, battered and bruised in there own right. Still your standing again, that's all that really matters now you just have to keep moving. As you take your first slow step forward a voice calls out from the front.

Why are you doing this?

    You look up to see yourself looking bask at you, except this you is healed, only the scars tell the tale that you yourself are living in now. Still you don't understand, so you cock your head to the side in confusion.


Why are you putting yourself through this much pain?

    You look at yourself confused. Why wouldn't I? I have to move forward keep going.

But Why!? What's even the point!? Why continue to suffer? Continue to be in pain for a future that you are unsure of, don't know of?

    You smile at the shadow before you, before taking another step forward. Because if I stop here, if I just give up than I will have nothing else left. You take another step until you're right in front of your shadow. You pat their shoulder in comfort. It's okay as long as I keep trying. You walk passed them ignoring the pain coming from every pore in your body. It doesn't matter. None of it matters just keep moving...
    You don't even finish your thought before you feel a strong pain against the back of your knees and your falling to the floor. You let out another scream as you feel something in one of your legs crack. Just breath. You hear your shadowing walking to you and you lift your head to see it standing before you.

See this is what your dealing with! You're just going to keep rising and falling and raising and falling over and over again until there's nothing left of you. Stop this nonsense and just give up!

    I can't though. You say as you slowly start to position your arms to stand once again. I have to keep moving forward. Even if it's at a snails pace I have to move. The shadow growls before it leaves your line of sight, but you feel it run away then turn and run back, straight towards you. You try to stand or roll over but your in so much pain that you can't move. The shadow lands right on your legs and you let out an ear piercing scream, both of them are broken in some way and you know you can't stand again.
    Now you have to stop the shadow screams at you. Your so broken you can't even walk! For some reason you don't feel despair, instead you bring your arms forward and start to drag yourself, continuing on the path at a slower pace. 
    When the shadow notices, it isn't happy. It sits on your back forcing you to hold in your pained moans while it shouts again. Stop! Stop this pointless nonsense! Whats even the point? 

The point? Why there really isn't a point to all of this pain or struggling I'm just doing it.

But why? Why go through all this pain for nothing? Why suffer in silence like this?

    I really don't know. I just know that I have to because if I stop suffering, stop trying, even if it just gets harder and I have to keep restarting or my progress is small or slow, well at least it's something. This, well this is life. It has no purpose or value. It's something everybody goes through or does. And despite my wounds, my thoughts, my outlook on life. I'm not ready to die yet. We aren't ready to die yet. That's why I keep moving forward. What more do you want?
    You aren't sure when it happened but at one point you stopped looking up and were instead looking down at a bruised and battered looking self preaching about living when you're not really sure if you want to live. You look down at yourself, scarred and without a heart or soul.
    The one standing is dead on the inside while the one with all the passion for life, the heart is struggling to move on the floor. This is who I am. Two halves that are in constant conflict with each other.

Private Moment

    It was a night where I decided that I needed answers. All these questions in my head had piled up over the weeks, while my brain struggled with stress from school. I was tired of feeling the way I was feeling with him so I finally asked.
    Talking was done, my mind calmed and we curled into each other. For the first time in a while we started to become intimate. We took our time. Slowly stroking each others bodies. First the arms then the chest, a use of nails here a little twist or flick there. It was soothing and calming with long kisses in between. At one point he held my left hand, softly stroking the skin while we kissed.
    It was then that he pulled back and asked 'What happened to your hand.' I immediately pulled my hand away from his and said 'It's nothing, don't worry about it.' Hoping he wouldn't remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago where I asked for a favor, thus revealing why I wear a fingerless glove.
    He remember though, really how could he forget. 'Why,' he says pulling back and looking at me. I just curl  up next him, one arm slung over his torso and say 'You have to be specific or I won't answer your question.' I don't know why I said this, why I made him state it. Maybe hoping that he wouldn't be thinking what I was thinking, but he was. He knew after all.
    So he asks 'Why did you do that to yourself?' I want to lie, say it's just a weird cut, no self-mutilation here, but I couldn't. We've been together for three whole fucking years, it's about time I told him about this side of myself. So I start to speak, slowly making sure every word is precise.
    I tell him what happened last friday evening after I drove him home. How I broke down into tears and balled my eyes out, then before I even realized I had grabbed my knife and slowly started to make a cut. Then another and another and another. There were four in total and even though I pressed hard and made myself bleed, only the first one hurt. The other three just made me feel shittier about myself.
    By this point I had pulled away, laying on my back and staring at the ceiling. I didn't want to see his face, I didn't want to know what he was thinking or feeling at this point.
    We sat there in silence for a moment, before he's curling into me, asking me why. Why? Because it makes me forget about reality for a moment, gives me control over something, keeps me from feeling completely and utterly numb, broken, dead. There are so many reasons why I did what I did.
    I ask him if he's okay. He's been so quiet since I've spoken, but he only replies with 'How would you feel if someone you care about started hurting themselves?' For a moment I can't help but think of another lighter blond that I cared for a while back. I've been on both sides of this coin. Still I answer 'sad, afraid, my heart would hurt for them.'
    We fall into silence, Aster still curled into me, while I continue to stare at the ceiling. At one point I start talking, why? Maybe because it was finally time to share a part of myself that is only ever hidden away on these pages, but I told him a bit of my struggle with depression. Around the time I first started cutting, why I did it, the thought process that went into it, my emotional state at the time and how eventually slowly I stopped.
    I don't remember the exact date of when I stopped but at one point I did. I remember I didn't just suddenly feel better, it was gradual and slow, but there were a few things in my life at that time that slowly helped me get out of my lonely pit.
    'You don't know this,' I said staring into the darkness, 'but at that time you were one of a couple of people that helped me stop.' Here I fell silent, unsure of what to say anymore. Aster starts to shake and I put my arms around him and rub his back, whispering that it's okay.
    I don't know why I told him it was okay, but after a few moments I spoke for a final time saying 'I regret what I did last week. And after feeling the way I did after. I know I'm never going to do it again.' A few moments later he calms and stands to go get tissues. No more words are exchanged and the next day he seems just a tad distant, but for once I push ahead and soon we're back to the way we were. Maybe just a teeny bit better than we used to be.

Locked Away

    It's dark outside. At lest I think it's dark outside. I don't have windows, not anymore, not after I cracked mine months ago. Then I pried a corner piece off and used it for relief.
    It took the nurses two weeks before they realized I'd relapsed into a new habit. Once they noticed thought they drugged me up for a week and threw me into solitary. They took me off the drugs after what felt like maybe a week, but I stayed in solitary for a month.
    I couldn't not take the drugs they handed me or else I would have started ripping my toe nails off. Anything to feel something, even if it's just pain. Finally they brought me back out to 'socialize' really by that point though they could have just left me in solitary.
    I'd pretty much turned into a mute by then, never speaking, only ever writing in a journal that never leaves my sight. They'll read it when I die. Try to decipher all the cryptic meanings and pointless symbolism. They'll think oh a birds mentioned, that must mean freedom was longed.
    Really though, I'm just tired of not feeling anything. I take the drugs they hand me to suppress the voices. but thier side effect is numbness. Guess it doesn't really matter if the only things I tend to feel are self-hatred and sadness. Still, this in my hands almost brings a smile to my slack face. In my hands is a hand made rope made from rags and pillowcases, tightly wound and tied together to be the base for my final act.
    Honestly, this was the easiest part of my two part plan. The second part involved getting screen time and trying to memorize how to do a hangman's knot without anyone noticing what I was really looking at. All tricky, it took over two weeks, but I finally did it. In my hands lay a sturdy hangman's knot and I knew that today i was finally going to feel.
    What though? Does it really matter? Regret, remorse, sadness, pain, I'd take anything by this point. There is little I care about. I secure the handmade rope, hang off of it for a moment to see if it won't snap immediately. It holds. I pull over my night stand, so it's right underneath and stand atop it.
    Shouldn't I feel some sort of hesitation or sadness? There's nothing though. I bring the rope over my neck, fasten it and stand on the edge. Aren't i suppose to have some deep and meaningful silent thoughts? But I can't, there's nothing to say. I've been here for what's felt like decades, I haven't seen family in forever and the only person I cared about is dead. There's nothing left to say. I tip over the table and immediately I feel the pressure on my wind pipe, before there's a snap.
    Two hours later a nurse walks in ready to hand over nr. 52 meds. Usual routine stuff, instead of finding the patient curled up in bed writing away in a secret journal, a cooling body hangs from a rope.
    Another soul gone from the world, because they didn't receive the help they needed. Instead they were locked away as to not disturb the normal people of the world.