Pity Prayers

A Story by Days lost

N/a

[excerpt]

"What's it like, or I don't know, feel like?"
"I don't think I feel it, I am it."
"But does it hurt, is it painful?"
I thought about it, but truly I didn't know. He was asking questions that Id never bothered asking, or maybe I did and just never took time to find an answer. Truthfully, I didn't think an answer existed in the first place.
"I think...I think it's a sad thing"
"Well I figured" he laughed hesitantly as he said that.
"No, I mean it's probably awful,but somehow I know that and yet it doesn't reach me."
He looked at me for a moment, the same look id seen before. The one that tells me that someone is a good person because the broken me is breaking them. I thought he deserved more than what I was giving him, but I had no idea how to describe that I'm not feeling these feelings the way I'm supposed to. How should you tell someone that you drown in sadness because you trust those waters better than the uncharted waters everyone calls happiness?

Still, I gathered the little courage I had.
"I can try to describe" i said shyly.
He stared with a patient look. I could have been silent for an hour and he would have waited with that same look.
I turned myself off, shut myself down so I could get the words out without feeling anything I didn't want to. Then i spoke.

"It's an unfortunate thing, to be nothing. Truly it is one of the saddest states a human being can experience. Therefore, when an individual convinces him or her self that the or she is nothing, they...well they have already lost. It's a battle you can't fight, for it is already lost. Their life would become one black as pitch, and everything you know is reduced to emptiness and disappears. Dreams become like stars, but not because of their fascinating twinkle and shine; it is due to their unreacheable radiance. Thus, they are forgotten. And once dreams die, doesn't everything else die too? Still, I'm sure it is quite hard to conceive of a person who lives a life such as this."
He was still waiting, so i further explained how one becomes nothing and the feelings involved.
What I am describing is the absence of feelings. It is when hopes and wishes become so far away that you drown yourself in darkness so you never see them. It is when a glimmer of light appears in that same darkness trying to remind you that happiness exists, but instead of acknowledging it you shut your eyes so tight that they bleed but you are content not being able to see anything behind the blood. However, the darkness begins to consume you as you forget what you feared seeing so much that you made your eyes bleed and you become curious about what will lie before your open eyes but then just as you are about to open them, your bleeding eyes begin to hurt for the first time and they hurt so bad that you wonder if it is really worth the pain to see what's out there and you start to think that maybe your eyes were closed all this time for a good reason and the fear of the unknown arises and you are so scared and your eyes hurt more and you can't tell if you are crying or bleeding or screaming or dying and now everything hurts so you close your eyes tighter, so tight that they feel like they may never open again and then, and only then does it all stop hurting. You never remember the light after that, nor do you remember the exact feeling of the pain. All you remember is that there was pain. And there was fear. So you just stand in the darkness forever without ever looking at the little light and eventually you forget it was ever there and somehow...somehow people are able to live life that way. Never looking at anything".
Never facing anything.
Never hoping.
Never expecting.
Not moving.
Never changing.
Unchanging in the dark for years passing.
Not living, just barely existing. And like the light, you too fade.
I was talking so fast I had to concentrate on breathing a bit, but I was unable to once I looked up at his face.

His eyes were watering, but he wasn't crying.
"You aren't supposed to live that way". He said this with a defeated anger, and something like sadness but not quite.
"There's a lot of things you aren't supposed to do, but we do them anyway. It may not be right to you, but---"
"Do they bleed?"
"What?"
"Your eyes? Do they bleed?"
I couldn't answer.
"Does it hurt?"
I searched for words that said enough, but not everything. He didn't need to hear everything. And I haven't gathered everything either, so really there wasn't a lot I could say.
I look up.
He's still waiting.
"Maybe it did, a long time ago. But the blood has dried now, so I'm fine."

It was true. I was okay with the darkness.
"Do you want to die?"
This was a question for which I had no answer. I don't know what I want. I have rarely ever known.
"Do you want to die?"
I get lost in the question. After all, it was one I would often ponder myself.
Do I want to die? Did I ever want to die?
Oh wow. It hurts. It really hurts.
Looking for this answer just.... I don't know. No, I do know.
That is why it hurts. But as long as my eyes stay closed, the feeling will fade. It will all fade.
Everything gone.
Faded and forgotten.
Just like me.

-The Pity Prayers