shawshank

2021- insomnia

When your mind is racing and your thoughts are yelling, whispering nothing.

It's that open eyes, closed mouth, talk too little talk too much, raise your voice, too much too loud, kind of feeling that leaves you breathless all the time, staring at the dark.

It's staying up until 2-4-5 AM without seeing a clock, ever silent, ever grasping at air or waiting to drown. It's stardust in your eyes and lacking the will to blink it off because deep down somewhere you know if you ignore it long enough it will just go away (like everyoneeverything else).

It's wondering and hoping and wishing on hand grenades for something just out of reach, something that would and could have happened, willing yourself not to think "what if?", not seeing fragments of imaginary car wrecks and pillows perfect for suffocating

(I reckon these things happen in other realities, alternate ones that turn out better or worse but only send over an occasional feeling that makes me wonder. That sense of deja vu that comes with nothing in particular. The head-throbbing missing of someone who never really was there).

It's too hot, too cold, too many blankets, too many pillows to cry into for no reason at all except missing siblings that never came, maybe missing that kind of bond that never breaks even in betrayal and in death. Too much too little too comfortable too weak.

That feeling of not feeling, of not wanting to, of wanting to feel too much. Of deserving it, of punishing yourself (and for what? You don't know. Or you do, and you repress it, like I've suspected I have). Of wanting to dream something so horrible sleep becomes frightening. Of wanting to dream something so pure, so glorious that you never want to wake.

Of wanting to fall asleep for months at a time.

Of wanting to ghost your friends because you don't deserve them. Of hating the fact that to help others you have to accept help sometimes too (of suffering alone on lonely nights when the moon shines too brightly).

Of blaming yourself for things way out of your control. Of regretting it because people say "it's not your fault, how could you even think that?" and being a chronic apologizer because even if it wasn't your fault directly, that doesn't mean it wasn't yours in some backwards twist of the way you make decisions, of the way the world panned out and the writing you do to hide the fact that even though people think you're perfect, you're really not. Writing about how it could have been and crying when you realize there will be nobody to know you better than you know yourself, and you're sad and you're numb and you're sinking, sinking, sinking. Oh! But don't tell anybody, 'cause they've all got enough of their own problems

so you'll carry it alone and reject all the help that never comes your way and sell empty promises through your tears for half price that you're fine even when you won't be mere hours later. And you'll help people out and later wonder if it really helped at all because the people you know aren't good at expressing that, are so sad themselves they won't ask for help even if you offer, make you worry all the time hoping that one kid who feels like a sibling you'd protect till the bitter end doesn't try to attempt again and God forbid, prevail, even though their melancholy is different than yours and they just won't except your fucking help (bloody Hell, man, I just don't want to lose anyone else, related or not. A friend of mine has never died. It's impossible, but I hope they never do. But that's selfish and cruel and I'm crying again and I went back to this spot to keep writing, and it feels like I'm holding their limp body in my arms like I hope I never have to, and bloody- make me stop writing please, this is so personal, so dear to me, writing this out. This is my safe place, please don't take this away from me).

Ahem. Well...

I cry at the feeling of empty arms. I cry for the family members and friends that I was once so close to, and now hardly speak to. I cry when I feel like I don't fit in, because although it has been founded as great, standing out, it only comes into play at the worst possible times, I've found. I cry for my burnt bridges, smouldering even years after they've ignited, left broken and hot and on fire, fire, fire. I cry for the fact that I hold grudges and ruin relationships on my end with lack of trust.

I don't cry a lot, maybe 2-5 times a week. I feel like I live alone, even though I do not. Because the issues I've picked up over the years create a rift between even myself and my loved ones. When I ignore it it blurs, but then my foot catches and I trip back into its gnarled embrace.

I like who I'm becoming, do not get me wrong. But when I keep myself up at night I realize all that is different than how it should be. How I know that, no one knows. Sometimes I feel like I'm a mesh of myself from multiple realities. But that's crazy.

Right?

Holy, I wrote a lot. Sorry. Agh, I shouldn't apologize, sorry. Oh- sorry- you know what, sorry, I'll just