Waiting For The Ships To Come Home

This was originally written as a suicide note back in 1996, A moment of clarity saved me though. How could I die when I had not yet been alive?

I was too young to remember when the darkness claimed me, but at the end of every day I was pleased to surrender to its power. I would slam my bedroom door closed on to a world that has cast me into cold isolation. I would sit crumpled and folded into the depth of the corner as my illusions, lies and denial started to crack at the end of another day. Powerful and crippling emotions, confusion and pain fight to break free from the resistance of my denial and compassion. When it snaps the agony devours me, my entirety swallowed whole. It hits like a tsunami engulfing, tumbling and thrashing through me and explodes to consume. I grab a piece of paper and thrust it up against a moonlit patch of wall. Through a crayon I silently scream my vengeance upon the page. This is how, at the age of 8/9, I discovered my release. There was no place where I felt as safe or as welcome as I did in the combined shadows of the night and my despair: crying, confused and alone pleading and begging for the ships to come home.

I still had my youth but I was broken down into small disconnected parts. I felt invisible and abandoned, even in the brightness of day the darkness cast a shadow upon me. From the distorted words and actions of others I absorbed my ways. I would love and they would laugh. I would offer my hand and they would stab me with the cold, shattering pain of rejection. The darkness came to me and whispered "You are worthless and pathetic, come into my embrace and I will protect you. It’s them who are to blame not you". So I swallowed the pain, locking away more and more deep inside every day and seeking comfort in the darkness. I stayed away from the line dance of society and waited for the moment that I could return to my moonlit patch of wall. Once there I would crumble and surrender again screaming in despair for the ships to come home.

I am as unheard as I am unseen and life never shows any concern or compassion. There is just no point anymore, no worth. Every day is just the same, I watch as they live. My heart is not worthy to love and my soul not worthy to be heard. Depression dubs over voices and I am no longer able to determine reality from the illusion. I can see the cause but when I reach up depression has such a hold on my ankles that I am getting pulled under more each day. Each day the rejections get harder as I am reminded how ugly, useless and meaningless I am. I cannot take it anymore, I am not invisible I just have to hide because we make this life so hard to survive. All I have is my crayon as I struggle to keep faith that the ships will come home.

My sister had lost her fight and anger claimed her, she took refuge in drugs and violence. I listened as our parents condemned her and I knew if the real me was revealed I would be rejected by them too. So I had to become everything my sister was not. I grew old too fast and continued only to grow more isolated as my youth was disintegrated. Seeking acceptance and belonging birthed dozens of personalities. I could be the person any person expected me to be. My life slowly became consumed by all the lies and illusions. I had nothing in common with those my age and every time I looked in the mirror I saw nothing reflected back. There is no room left inside me to swallow all this pain and I'm losing myself. This act of mine is beginning to fail and cracks are starting to show. I just don't have the strength and words don't seem to heal anymore. Everything is meaningless and I am beginning to doubt that the ships will ever come home.

My sister was my kinsman. We had fought through evil and abuse with a secret smile. Together the darkness would never win over our souls. The day our hands fell apart our lives collapsed. I tried so hard to hold on to her but she slipped further and further away until she was gone. I could not hold on either and as the curtain fell and I stood before my parents as the actor not the character. How could they understand who I am as we have never been introduced. I was a stranger to my parents and to myself. I was asked to leave and now there is nothing but darkness and a longing for vengeance. Yet I still hold compassion and this thin grip of right and wrong keeps me on the rails. I have come to exist simply for others expectations and obligations and I needed to find myself. I walk without direction or awareness, desperately searching for something unknown. In my times of desperation and anguish I look to the stars knowing my sister is out there looking up at the same night sky. Both so certain that for us the ships would never be coming home.

I found a bed in an old stone hut and I wait for my family to come and show me I am loved after all. I could evict myself from this shanty bed but I choose destitution so that I may be rescued. Time is all that came and that too passed me by. I see no reason to carry on with this anymore. I am unloved, unwanted and worthless. People pass me by and I am not even noticed. There is nothing I would not give for a second glance after a women passes or a friend to drop by just to see how I am. I have lost contact with everything; it’s all just become one big noise. I fear for my actions now as the darkness engulfs my being. Depression dubs over the voices and places subtitles in my mind, all laughter seems aimed at me and why are they all staring at me. My anger burns and calls for vengeance but all I have left is my soul and I will not let that be taken from me. All I held faith in has been proven false and all my hopes have faded. I collapse down on to my knees in complete defeat and surrender. As I kneel upon the cold grass beside the cliff edge I realise I am a coward. So sitting now with a bottle of vodka and a pocket of tablets I scream out one last time for answers but it seems that for me, the ships will never be coming home.

So now I have no hope I say to my parents that I wish you could have known me. To life I say I wish I could have found you and too all those people who never allowed me to love them, well it’s your loss. I have failed life but worst of all I have failed myself. Life gives no room for individuality in society and having an open mind, soul and heart is nothing but a curse. I die here today as I spent my existence, alone and unknown. Maybe in death someone might realise I was once actually alive. As I take my life I think of chances missed and wasted youth. As I take my last breath now I cry out in agony to the stars because I know that somewhere another broken child is alone, in pain and losing faith with every new day that the ships will ever come home.

Copyright 'The Human Voice' 2012

Author's Note

'Waiting For The Ships To Come Home' is an old expression, the wives of sailors would wait in the harbor hoping their husbands would return from war. I heard it in a pub and I wrote the above of the back of it.

Reviews

[Tex]

remarkable write! I get the sense that this one was written straight from the heart. It reads completely authentic and true. The paragraph that starts with this line:

My sister was my kinsman. We had fought through evil and abuse with a secret smile.

moves from past to present tense several times... this is a sign that you were back in the moment while writing this section. Being in the moment give a very real and emotive write, but you have to write fast and remember to go back and clean up tenses and punctuation and stuff later. I recommend you read this paragraph and attempt to sit beside yourself as you read it and decide on which tense to use through out the paragraph.

I want to stress that this is a remarkable write. I am shocked you have so many reads and no one has told you what a gem you have here. Well let me be the first them... this is really good stuff...

Thank you for letting me have this small glimpse into your soul... it was a privilege.

[Mark Anthony Games (Human Voice)]

Thank you very much, I had not noticed that time travel before. I wrote this as a suicide note in 1997(ish), not really looked much at it in the last few years.

[Tex]

you will love to re-read it... it is wonderful