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TW: thoughts of suicide, mentions of self harm
'1:30AM'; the digital clock on my bedside table read, the minutes ticking past like seconds from the last time I checked the clock. Well, I guess dad was right saying that the longer you spend on your phone doing jackshit, the quicker the time passes.
Time. What a silly thing, huh? That's a rhetorical question, of course, I don't expect an answer from the voices in my head, unless my delusions are becoming real. But back on track. Why do we need time? It's a construct that leads to nothing but insanity if it's lost or stripped from your knowledge, or floods of anxiety if you're running late for something stupid like work or a meet up with others.
Heh, I haven't been to one of those in ages. A meet up, not work, I find it quite easy to get to work on time as I only live a few minutes away from that god damned school. Speaking of work; there's only around six hours 'till I need to get out of bed. Why not just go early and chill on the tennis courts? Maybe the moon will drop from the sky, straight onto this pathetic, scar covered, drained, pale — no. Don't be selfish, don't piss off dad with another up in those bloody pills.
I stared up at the ceiling with a blank look in my eyes as thoughts rushed through my mind, bouncing off the sides of my skull like an empty DVD screen, never hitting the corners for a satisfying answer that would let me sleep finally. I glanced down at my screwed up blankets that covered only half of my body, taking a moment to glare at the dinosaur patterns that my late mother stitched onto the piece of green sheet.
"Fucking bitch.. I'll chuck them out later.." I muttered to myself, shoving the blanket off my old, creaky bed and getting up, the sleeves of my 'depression hoodie', as dad likes to call it, immediately slumping down and swallowing my hands, making them look like they never existed in the first place. My footsteps made a soft pattering noise on the tattered floorboards, the black socks on my feet disappearing into the depths of my black converse.
"I'll leave a note on the fridge for dad, he'll see it when he wakes up." I decided, grabbing a post-it note off my desk and scribbling the words 'Tennis court, back later x' onto the yellow paper, pressing it onto the cold door of the fridge where he would see it. John — he's a sweetheart, he is, never complained despite having such a failure of a son. I've always felt bad for him. Maybe if I disappeared or finally killed myself, he would be ha — no. Stop it. The rope burns are still scarred on your neck, don't be selfish.
I grabbed my house keys and my earplugs, shoving them inside my ears as hard as I could to block out all sounds of the outside world. Music, it's my only escape nowadays. But it's starting to get bland. The only 'drug' I'm addicted to becoming mellow and boring, just like everything else. Maybe it is time to leave.. the house. Nothing else. Just the house.
The cold air hit me immediately, goosebumps rising on my fragile skin as the familiar, freezing gusts of London wind swept underneath my hoodie. Tsk, typical England; never a day of good weather, huh? Whatever. I stepped down the gravel pathway and quietly opened the front gate, locking that too behind myself, before starting down the worn streets towards the back entrance of my workplace. They always left that door to the tennis courts open.
The other members of staff barely ever needed to use the automated keys to get access to the back gates of the school. Did I mention I work in a school? Not full time, it's just a side job while I finish in uni. Cool, huh? It's not. Stupid fucking kids crawling all over you every time you turn around with their jam covered fingers is disgusting to me. But it's whatever.
It only took about seven minutes to walk from my home to the tennis courts, my body instinctively walking to the centre of the first court and laying down on the astroturf. I kept my eyes closed for a while, the sound of The Neighbourhood playing in my eardrums on repeat until I finally opened them and changed the song. Arctic Monkeys, When The Sun Goes Down, how fitting.
I hummed along to the music, my pupils dilated and fixed on the stars amidst the the pale fog. The sky was always so blue at this time of night — morning? Who cares. But, no, it's not that happy bright blue that reminds you of primary school days, sitting in the hall and waiting for the head teacher to read out your name on the list of stars of the week. No. A dark blue; a blue that makes you think of the depths of the ocean, unseen by human eyes from just how far down in the ground, under the crust of the earth, it is. 'The blue of anxiety'; John calls it.
He always has such funny names for my favourite things. Well, the things I tolerate the most. Gosh, my dad truly is the best father in the world. He doesn't deserve such a failure of a child like me. All I do is lay in bed, eat the food he pays for, waste the electricity bill by always keeping my phone on charge.
"Maybe I should go." I whispered to myself. Not even the 'angel' on my shoulder being able to get the thoughts out of my head this time. "Maybe.."
'1:38AM'; the clock on my phone read as the screen lit up with a message, my eyes glancing towards it for only a second before they closed once again.
