What Makes Me Alive.

A Story by jenn.

No one has told me what it means to be alive. What it means to be dead. Of course, everyone will tell me to be alive, I will have blood pumping through my veins, my heart will beat at steady, healthy intervals, everything will work correctly. And when I'm dead, everything will be off, like the flick of the switch.

I am, in all essential ways, dubbed alive. I suppose I'd have to be, for I am writing you this story. So why, why do I feel so dead? Tell me, or can you? Can you tell me what makes me truely alive?

---

"It's not healthy to be trapped inside your head so much, Myah." The therapist, excuse me, my therapist, tells me calmy. I can tell she's annoyed that I do not give her information about myself, that I am not open. That my shell is strong and won't crack and spill the shattered, messy, physce of a fifteen year old.

"I'm not trapped." I say. "But why does that matter? Times up." I get up to leave, to walk back home.

My steps are steady, just like my heart and breathing. I can almost count them, they're so precise. My eyes sting, months of unshed tears welled behind the damned things.

Hello, My name Is: _____. And you still don't know. I am invisible. No, no of course I am not truely invisible. But I can atleast imagine, right?

---

Every day here is the same thing. Over and over, relentless. No one here is a social pariah. No, you're somehow noticed, whether it good or bad. Usually it's bad. Melodramatic, believe me I know. We're not classed by rich or snobby, emo or jock, cool or geeky. We are classed by vulnerability, our likelyhood to bust open at the seems, mix our spilled blood with fresh tears. That is something I must not, can not, will not, most definitely refuse to do.

And that makes me the biggest target at this school. I am tempting, fresh bait. They, the students, all play the game, "Who can make her cry first?" But no one has won. Not even I have won. Because I sadly give them credit, credit where it is most certainly due. This game has annihlated my inner depths, my will to survive. It kills me, so I think by human standards, I am dead.

As always, I can taste the blood before they can see it. They push me, shove me, threaten me. Punch me, kick me, repeatedly torture me until my blood makes a river streaming down the floor. Others walk by, past me, past my dark brown pleading eyes for some form of help. This is silent, because I can't speak, I can't let my attackers - whoever they may be today - win. So I plead silently, and I am still ignored. And yes, it hurts, because I have lost the feeling of life.

As blood leaks out of me, my heart refuses to stop, to end, to prove me dead as I have believed over and over. No one cares or feels for me, and this leaves me dry, frozen, searching for touch, for anything that can bring a jump start to my pitiful existence.

---

"What are you thinking of?" My therapist asks. I remain silent. It is a strategy, my silence. The information stays in my head because if it leaks out it proves I care. No one cares, so I do not either.

I am thinking about nothing, everything, all at once. How I can be demeaned, ignored, how I can be nothing in someones eyes.

"I'm thinking of how I'm dead." I say, monotone, heartless.

"Sweetheart," she says in a sickingly sweet tone, dripped with forced care, "You're most certainly not dead."

"Oh I'm not?" I question sarcastically. "I am. I am in their eyes, I am in your eyes, I am in my families eyes."

"It matters what you think, dear."

"You know what I think?" I question bitterly as I stand up. I am by the door now, I am running now, I am so tired now. "You really want to know?" I am broken now, I am feeling now. "I think I've never even been alive."

The door has closed, now, the door where I proclaimed my life was over before it ever began.

---

"You, you are nothing!" They shouted loudly, in my ear, my heart. "Nothing!" They repeated. Something in me clicked, something in me turned and swiveled and shot up my throat, to my tongue, my lips.

"I am nothing!" I errupted painfully. "I am nothing just like you say, but how can I be something in a place like this?!" I scream.

---

I know you're confused reading my story. It's okay, I'm confused, too. Confused about all of what's happening. You question how I am dead when I clearly meet standards of life. But look closely, I am willing you to look closely, into my deep eyes, my sad eyes. I know they are sad because I've stared at them nights I cannot sleep. I do not sleep often. I am sad, I am tired, and most of all, I am alone.

My chest feels icey and drenched in draperies of cold hell. My eyes have long since cried, and I feel dead because that is how people view me. As nothing, so I might as well be dead, right? I've always been told, been told that I shouldn't care about people see me as. And I try not to, honestly, but I really care. I have changed my views and come to the conclusion I have never lived. I am alive, but on the outside, where some things like this matter, I am dead.

I even lost my closet friend, the person I cared for so much. His picture sits by my bed, his smiling face a reminder of what I've lost. I sit on my bed, put my head in my hands. "Lane." I whisper. "Why." I have never felt anymore lost, anymore alone then on this day, this warm day, the day I remember I am all but alone.

---

I sit in the park after looking at his picture. I sit in the park and cry for once because I have the guts to admit I'm not okay. Do you hear me? I'm not okay. I haven't been and probably won't be.

"Myah?" The voice who spoke my name actually sounds warm, affectionate. I keep my eyes on ground, my tears moistening the gravel.

"Myah, talk to me." He whispered. His eyes were on my back, pleading with me.

I stand up, because all the sudden I am angry, I am hurt.

"What is there to say, Lane? Can you tell me? Better yet, what's not left to say. You don't care." I dared him to contradict me.

"What makes you say that?"

I laughed, but inside I tore open and winced outwardly. "You do not care, Lane. You never did. You sit there day after relentless day as I suffered and did nothing. You were supposed to be my friend and you watched me die and now you pretend to care? You pretend you always have? Don't lie to me, don't lie to me and tell me 'Myah, of course I care.' or 'Myah, I love you.' like you used to because you never did Lane. You would of helped me like a real friend and you just watched me crumble like you are now!"

It hurt to say it, to say all of it. But it felt releasing to tell him how much I felt.

I walked away, because it's the only thing I know how to do.

---

A week later, a week of silence idly passing by, I sit at the park again. Lane doesn't say my name, he just walks up and kisses me, easily, like we've always been friends or more. It doesn't proclaim ever lasting love or soulmate principle crap, like all those cheesy novels do. It made me cry, it made me hurt. It made him hurt, too. All that kiss said was, "Myah, I'm sorry, I need you, my best friend, I've always needed you, and I'm dumb and stupid and everything else, Myah forgive me, please." Or maybe he said that, I don't know.

But I feel better now, I actually feel alive. My hearts still monotone, my breathing easily trackable. I'm not happier or any brighter, I don't smile more. If I did, the people around me would shoot it down, once again take away what little life I mustered up. Lane is not my protector, I told him I didn't need or want one. He is simply my friend who kisses the wounds of a rough day.

No, I'm not really dead or alive, and I never really was. Or maybe I was, it's hard to tell. But right now, If I could tell you honestly, I actually feel as if something has brought me to life.

But you'll never hear me say it, because on the outside, to the outside, I'll always be dead.