Asterisk*

Suppression and Sedition*

*With the realization that neither are aware of their quite contrasting forces

I open and close my heart,

Each for a brief period of time,

Getting shorter and shorter each time,

Until it stops.

And we start again,

Dead.

Apollo 

 There are certain events in everybody's life that completely change their way of thinking. It's like a switch goes off in their brain, realizing that the way you've thought for years of your life was to be blunt, trash. The worst part was different for everyone. I couldn't really pinpoint it for myself at first. Everything just seemed so huge, so important, that I couldn't really comprehend exactly what I was thinking. There were so many jumbled thoughts going on, but a few things stood out to me no matter what path my mind decided to go.

I felt stupid.

In every sense, really. After a track record of throwing myself into my every school related thing that I could, I still was somewhere at the end of the pack, struggling to keep up in ways that I couldn't fully explain to anyone who was ahead of me. I was dumb for thinking years ahead. It was a tendency I had, I know. But there's something about it that offers some kind of escape, like an alternate realm where things seem like you envisioned them to be. I can skip the shitty office job and get to the actual science in my thoughts. But in life, that's not quite possible at all. In fact, it forced me to face actual fears that in my head seemed very real, but outside, made me just feel more stupid than I had felt before. At the end of it all, I was stupid for ever letting myself feel like I could live, truly live, with this person that I couldn't get out of my eyes. He was everywhere, like a hologram I carried around with me. I just wanted to stare, but instead I kept going, trying to go on some spiritual journey with a vital person missing from the equation. The equation that turned out to be so much harder than anybody ever thought.

For once, I stopped throwing myself in the effort to be completely okay. I earned throwing my own pity party. It was my money, my house, my pity. It was no one else's business if I wanted to throw a stupid party in some winter haze that I couldn't shake away.

I was leaving for Christmas break in two days. I was currently packing, obsessing over how many folds were in my top in an attempt to distract myself from everything that was going on in my mind. I promised Jinx that I would go help him pack later. Well, promised was an interesting word to use. Rather, I told him I would come help him because I needed to be around someone to distract me fully and I knew it.

I wished my roommate happy holidays as he was leaving two days early in an attempt to surprise his family. With what, I don't know, but I can predict that it had something to do with the overuse of candles that smell particularly good at times. It was like he almost knew I was upset and kept using scents that I just associated with sad. Or maybe, I was just looking for signs again, seeing I saw them everywhere.

Closing the door behind me, I walked down the hallway, trying to avoid all the dorm room chaos everybody was going through. To be truthful, it seemed like everybody was avoiding me more than I was avoiding them. I soon reached Jinx's dorm room, but instead of going in, I turned around, staring at Marcus' closed door for way too long. It's crazy to think that he's really just a twist of a door knob away when it felt like we were on different planets entirely. The door eventually cracked open as I turned around, only to be tapped on the back by someone who I immediately realized wasn't Marcus.