It wasn't because I knew

that things would get better.

It wasn't because I thought

that anyone would need me,

much less, miss me.

But it was because I 

had something to prove,

things to do.

I knew death would come soon enough,

why beckon it towards me?

Temptation leads me away,

to nightmares I am yet to escape.

I hear pleas for mercy,

ringing in my head.

Thoughts that I fight every day.

Still, no one understands

the wars I have fought

and the scars they have caused.

Reality throws stones at me,

but I still stand.

The will to live

has pulled me through.

But how far, I wonder,

until even that fails?

Afterwards I understood why it was called "losing".

I felt forms of loss for which my vocabulary, to this point infallible, was found lacking.

An unspoken thing had been ripped from me. 

I did not much notice it's existence nor did I realize ownership over it until it had been taken, unwillingly.

Consent is reliant on both parties understanding the terms, not that it was asked for,

perhaps because of the knowledge that it could not be given.

The struggle was fleeting and mostly in confused whispers which quickly turned to whimpers of pain once the objective had been attained.

Unable to process, only to endure I felt the sting of tears more acutely than anything else.

When they fell they somehow unleashed my voice, momentarily freeing it from it’s bonds.

My frantic cries eventually pierced his indifference, after attempts to silence, dismiss, coerce.

I remember pushing him away, this time it effected the desired result.

That first gasp of air was freedom even as I scurried backwards, claiming as much space for my own as I could in that oppressive temple of innocence which we had defiled.

Though I did not remember agreeing to the act, I had been present nonetheless and therefore must hold partial responsibility.

Right?

I wanted to watch the wooden and plastic structure burn against the bruised sky which throbbed like my body.

Wondering if the flames would purify me, I stumbled home silently, hopelessly anchored to reality by an iron grip that would not subside until my sanctuary was in sight.

It had never looked so familiar yet somehow strange, as if I had been away for a very long time and was not the same person who had crept quietly into the night before.

I didn't have the stomach for a hanging.

I don't own a gun and I don't like mess.

A flick of the wheel would likely cause unacceptable collateral damage.

And while on the subject on innocents, "What would they think?"

How many generations would suffer a confusing curse of unanswered questions?

And then there is still so much yet to do.

So I smiled at my kitbag and packed up my troubles and said,

"There may well come a time you get the better of me -

but not today!"

I tossed the crumpled up piece of paper on the floor where it joined the others. There must have been fifty of them. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I knew that no matter how I wrote it, they wouldn't understand.

A shout came from downstairs, my younger brother calling everyone down for dinner. I ran my hands through my hair, and stared for a moment at the knife I'd bought earlier that day. I shoved it hurriedly under my bed and went downstairs.

"...could have shouted. I wanted you to go and get them," my mom was telling my brother. An unbidden smile tugged at the corners of my mouth; mom had said the exact same thing to me on a few occasions.

After dinner I went back to my room. The pain was still there, weighing down on my soul and threatening to consume me. Loneliness, despair, guilt, shame, hopelessness, all were vying for my attention while a little voice told me that I didn't have to feel those things anymore. All I had to do was get the knife from under the bed and...

But I couldn't. Because they wouldn't understand. My family didn't know what I felt, they didn't understand my pain. They would blame themselves, no matter what my note said.

I picked up the nearest piece of paper and uncrumpled it. I scoffed at the clumsy words that stubbornly refused to tell my family why I'd done what I'd done.

"You have to carry on," said something inside me. "You have to fight the pain."

"I can't, it's too much." I don't remember grabbing the knife, but it was in my hand; it's blade promised relief, an end to the pain.

"You can fight it."

"There's nothing left for me. No reason to go on."

"Then don't do it for you. Do it for them." And I thought about my dad, smiling through dinner. And about my mom, asking each of us how our day went. My youngest sister telling us about something exciting she learned in school, and my brother bragging about his first place science project.

And I knew they loved me, even when I didn't love myself. Maybe they didn't understand my pain, but they had their own pain. And I couldn't add to it by going away.

The little voice wasn't as insistent as the emotions, and it wasn't as loud as the voice that told me I deserved to die. But it was right: I had to carry on. For them.

There was no reason to continue, my entire life was a wreck. I'd lost my child, my heart, and my mind. I had absolutely nothing left. I considered on the long drive into town to take my car and smash into the vehicle that was going southbound. I thought about taking all of the medicine I was given to help me function, strip my self down and go for a swim. I thought about slicing my wrists to the bone, and then I considered leaving my mother all alone. 

My life is like a set of pie charts. I can do everything alone. I can cook alone and eat alone and think alone and smile alone and laugh alone and cry alone and sing alone and dance alone and make memories alone and dream of the future alone. But then my life is just a series of uniformly coloured circles. I want to share everything, giving and receiving slices of pie chart to my friends and family and everyone I love. And then my life will be filled with colour. 

There'll be circles cut into halves of complementary contrasts, and circles of colours I know or have just seen for the first time, and circles filled with thin slithers of every colour of the rainbow. And your pie charts will be the same. That time we bought prosecco and drank it in a field as the sun set, discussing French literature. All five of us now have that five-way pie chart of yellow and pink and green and navy and red. And that time I helped you empty the bin in the rain and we created two pairs of semi-circles of green and blue. And isn't that so much better than if I'd had a green circle, and you'd each had circles of your own colour? 

But inevitably some pie charts stay circles, and in their perfect regularity create holes of loneliness. And my thoughts go round and round, unable to do anything but loop over the same memories and ideas and emotions without any impetus to change direction and broaden my mind beyond the ring in which it is stuck. 

I'm sorry if my facebook messages constantly requesting your company get annoying, but all I really want is to share some pie, and create a slightly more colourful world. 

someone's in bed, gently breathing

to the tune of two fans' white noise.

face turned mostly into the pile of pillows

willowy trees brush against the window.

thus passes most of the daylight hours.

the walls know the shadows that flit hither and thither

so the occupant sleeps when it's safe.

when the occupant is awake, they are sometimes singing

(right now it's the Hamilton musical and it's to the 

point of literal nausea now, ad nauseam)

or listening to music from sometimes-tinny speakers.

video games, too, high-vaunted and lofty music

to accompany battles against dragons and knights with red inside,

and incongruous '50s tunes for a first-person shooter

about the post-nuclear wasteland. 

there are good days, as well as bad days.

on the bad days: play, listen, sing, sleep.

it's different.

the walls hear typing fingers and shaking hands

shuddering breaths as they try not to cry because

that sound has always earned them sneering, hateful fists.

when they try to sleep, it doesn't go so well.

they mutter out "thanks for that flashback" and twist into a new position,

shoving in earbuds to block out everything else.

they cry.

sometimes the past is not such a shadow

instead, sometimes, it is a haunting figure in the door

and with claws of memory, the occupant's heart is torn open

wide gashes that burble out blood and memories in equal measure.

the walls hear the following sobs, hear the collapse of the body on the ground

begging for mother, for mercy, for more.

there are more bad days than good.

but walls are patient

they will hold up the ceiling and wait and hope

for better days to come.