2015

A Story by scarlynn

I will steal from you, I will cheat off you, I will cheat on you, I will lie through my teeth and look you in the eyes when I do it. I couldn't put a name to what was the matter with me, but I knew something was the matter because all of my friends could take breaks to study on Thursday nights, and I was out partying for my third day in a row. Consecutive ignorance to what was wrong with the world - and I was in my own.

I started to notice only dark things. There was some sort of comfy, gray thing enveloping me, and at the time it seemed like an exciting secret. I had my own world that no one would ever know about. I had something no one could steal from me, because I would have it forever.

My downfall was that I didn't know how true this would become.

I went from pouring my heart out on the marching field to showing up hungover to rehearsal in the space of one year. My best friend was my worst enemy- she was my other downfall. Her eyes were death. I've never seen a dead person's eyes before, but I always felt I caught a glimpse of the other side when she looked at me. She was snaggle-toothed, smart and witty as a sharp razorblade. She knew how to cut me like nothing else ever could, and I had bled a lot by the time I was eighteen. My skinned knees would give out any time I tried to escape my gray cloud of melancholy, and I would buckle and fall back into the same scabby puddle I'd been living in for the past year.

My secret was no longer comforting, but a burden I carried on each shoulder that no one else seemed to notice. How could they notice something as invisible as my own self?

I still can't get out of bed to do anything, not even the things I like. And I mean that in every area of my life you could imagine. I can't reciprocate those feelings, they aren't there and I dig and dig and dig for them but every time I hit rock bottom, I find the same cracked mirror.

I was thinking about train tracks a lot. I was thinking about them because they were near my house, maybe a ten minute walk from my bed. If I couldn't get out of bed to do anything I liked, I might as well get out for something I need to do. I didn't know what I was talking about. I can't reach any goals. Why did he let her leave and then make me stay?

My house has never been broken into, but I've been robbed more than once.

Eighteen and walking. I stop at the bridge and flick my cigarette into the water. It's the most beautiful river I've ever seen, and I wonder what made me ruin it. That one thing ruined the entire river, and I was on my way to the same ocean.

I stole seven things to numb myself. I knew exactly what was going to happen. Did that mean it was rape? Was I the girl that was asking for it? Who would I talk to about it? Could I talk?

I stared into the eyes of the ceiling and counted my heartbeats. Five. I was so dull and gray I couldn't even hear the sound of my own blood. I guess that's what made me so curious. I guess that's what put scissors in my hand. I guess that's why I couldn't kick the habit of freeing my veins from the only organ that held me together.

It happened two times, and that was excluding my ex-boyfriend wrestling me to the ground in a study room on a Wednesday night after I said stop four times. But no one can hear you screaming in a benzodiazepine dream.

My house has never been broken into, but I've been robbed more than once.