Life In HD

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

I used to be scared of the boogie man that hid under my bed at night; sometimes he was in my closet. I used to fear the shadows that lingered in the hallways after dark. I used to cover my head with my blanket and curl up into a ball, so that he wouldn't see me; That way I would be safe, but it doesn't work that way anymore.
All I had to do was pretend that nothing was there. That nothing was wrong. Out of sight, out of mind. Pretend that everything is okay and act out the scene, embrace the role that you play.
My sister always said I was a drama queen. I thought that now I could use that to my advantage. I thought that I could keep going. Keep acting until it went away... But it never went away.
He killed me, but he left me breathing. Barely, but he left me breathing. Only so that I could wish that I was dead. So that I could fear every shadow that I walked past, and be terrified by any man who faced me. So that when I left my bed in the morning I was ashamed of waking up in my own skin. Only so that I could become the child that I once was and fear what I couldn't even see.
What I did see, didn't always seem so scary. Sometimes things were okay, and sometimes they weren't. I continued to tell my self that a bad day was just a day that was bad. He didn't let me believe that. He told me constantly that everyday was a bad day, and bad days couldn't just be bad days. They had to be nightmares. Looking out of my front door had to be terrifying.Watching the cars drive by and head wherever they were headed. Eating my cereal, picking up the phone, taking a sip of water, terrified me. Maybe these things wouldn't have been so hard, if only I wasn't so lonely.
Death hung over my head like the sun in the sky, and it seemed just as bright. Even brighter on some days, depending on what he told me. Everything that I was and everything that I did, I couldn't even do. Everything that I felt I couldn't feel. Everything that I saw I
couldn't even see. It was painstakingly difficult to say a word to anyone about anything. Breathing didn't even come naturally.
I thought nothing could fix me. I thought nothing could make anything any easier for me. That's when Death politely introduced me to his cousin, Sleep. At first, I thought Death had taken that from me too. I thought that he had taken everything, because at first even sleeping was horrifying. Falling asleep alone, dreaming of being alive but wanting nothing more than to be dead. Waking up alone. Waking up at all. I soon found that my useless prescriptions weren't so useless after all, only because when I was good enough, they would help me fall into a deep sleep. A sleep in which I didn't have to worry anymore. In my head I would pick a god and silently thank him for the opportunity to dissappear, if only for a little while.
All of that was too good to be true. See, Death had only Introduced me to Sleep because he knew that when I would awaken, I would realize that everything was still the same. That after those days or nights where I would drift away into nothingness, those hours that I spent in pure bliss, would end eventually. And It always ended the same way. It always ended with me remembering who and where I was. It always ended with me asking Death why he couldn't just take me home.
Everyone in life always tells you that you aren't alone, they have to tell you that. Humans have to lie to you, it's just in their nature. Not always with bad intentions, although a lie is still a lie. You are okay, they would say. Everything is going to be alright, they would say. I understand, they would say.Those would have been truly beautiful things to hear, if only they were telling the truth. But every sound of every syllable of every word they spoke were all lies.
I could never explain to anyone how hard it is, having nothing. It's kind of ironic, that whenever I complained as a child my parents would never fail to remind me that I had everything. How grateful I should be that I had a home, and A family that loved me. How I should be so happy that I was blessed enough to go to bed at night with a full tummy, when there were so many children going to bed with theirs empty. And I was blessed, and I am blessed. Too bad, that I can't really be here to know that. Too bad that my mind can't properly connect to my body to know that none of this is even real.