There is something about the night and the darkness that creates a heaviness in my soul...it's like I can hide all my sin in the sunlight because the stains are not visible, but to the eyes of the night, all my sins are perfectly clear. Maybe it's because it's easier to think dark thoughts in the dark...maybe because the darkness has been a constant companion and witness to the darkness that lurks inside my soul waiting to devour me, no matter where I run. Secrets create such an oppressiveness; they breed suspicion and worry, hate and anger...and yet we still hold on to them like they give us life. Lately there have been so many foreign thoughts whirring through my mind that three years ago I would not have even had the words to know or understand. It shocks me, and yet I feel I must write what is beating against my rib cage like a frantic bird. If I was going to commit suicide, I know exactly the place and the way...the thought terrifies me because I know my own fear of heights, and it was the highest drop I've ever seen into a river that looked so harsh and sickening...and yet the fear would almost seem like a blessing rather than the pain of both loss and reality. I saw a picture the other day, or rather I keep seeing pictures, of scars riddling the bodies of oppressed souls, and somehow vaguely my mind begins for the first time to understand the painful thrill of feeling a blade slice through your skin, watching the blood slowly seep through the layers of flesh...trying to make yourself realize that you really are alive, and the emptiness and numbness are just a condition of the mind. Somehow all at once the pieces of myself that I have for a long time despised stick out like a sore thumb as I gaze into the mirror. Once a long time ago someone told me I was beautiful, and kept telling me until I believed his soft voice whispering in my ear...and I was happy, because he saw me as I wanted to be seen. He loved me for who I was and his love stirred in me an appreciation, and maybe even a tinge of love for myself. And yet today what once was lies shattered and broken like shards of glass. I can't pick up the good memories to admire the glass without being cut by the sharp edges of the mistakes we made and the pain we caused. I look in the mirror and see the slant of my brow and the child-like curve of my face that so often I subconsciously try to hide in pictures; it's the uneven skin of my arms that seeps tiny points of blood when the skin is scratched; it's the blue cold numbness that grips my feet and makes it hard to walk without curling my toes; it's lump behind my ear that no one but me knows about because I'm scared to think of what it might be...or become, and I ignore the ache that throbs there as I swallow a few pills to make it go away. It's the way my ankles bend in an un-ordinary way, and the way my eyebrows have always been so thin and light. It's the way my heart thuds and makes my stomach lurch whenever I try to make it stronger--head so light and feet so heavy. There are so many things about me that I notice and despise within a millisecond of looking in that mirror in my room. I turn away from it, unable to believe the words that people say when they say I'm beautiful. When eyes turn and wander in grocery stores I look away embarrassed because of the flaw that they must see. There are so many things that stir within me painful thoughts and memories of mistakes I've made...when I see the charming purity of an untouched bride, when I see the happy sparkle of a child's eyes, when I see two people so in love with each other that they no longer see themselves, when I open the blade of my pocket knife, when I dream the dreams of my childhood in which I was falling--murdered, when I hear his name, or remember their friendship...
Maybe I'm still living in the past, and maybe all this pain that my heart keeps clinging to is slowly eating me alive, and in doing so, is killing me. Maybe is a huge word...with it you can convey uncertainty or skirt around words with playfulness. Maybe this, maybe that. All I am right now is tired, and that is no maybe. My eyes are growing heavy, but maybe when I wake up I'll remember just how much good and love and light and joy are really around me. Maybe tomorrow I'll realize just how much life I really have to live for; maybe tomorrow I'll understand the importance of cherishing the skin you call your own; maybe tomorrow I'll forget where I've been and look forward to where I'm going; maybe tomorrow I'll take pride in my imperfections because they are what makes me me; maybe tomorrow I'll forget all those old memories that still chain me to who I was and instead make new memories to spur me forward to who I will become. Please don't fear for me, I know that I am loved.
