Conscious Unconscious

Every night I sleep a little less. And every time I finally give in to sleep I sleep a little more.

The night is no longer the restful place it once was. It is instead, a harbor for the delusions of my mind to become closer to the reality of the day. When the sun sets, my mind takes off, running rampant over the serene field that is my sanity. It seems to know that I am defenseless towards the visions it creates in the darkness. Dreams mix with reality without my awareness of the passage between the two. I am unable to trust the world I see, for it always carries the possibility of being a lie.

My dreams too, keep me from sleeping. Even when I am no longer physically able to stay awake, I do not want to give in to the unpredictable world of the subconscious. Yet, when I am awake I am still haunted by the nightmares of the nights when I allowed myself to give in to sleep. I cannot allow myself to go back into that haunted world. Each stretch without sleep is a little longer than the last.

When enough time has passed without sleep, I finally have to give in. My body can no longer handle what my mind forces it to do. I prepare myself for the coming cold of sleep and let go. In the time when I let my consciousness disappear, I sleep for a long time. The sleep is numbing, thoughtless, as there is no energy to spare for dreaming. It is almost pleasant to feel that nothing.

When I awake from my slumber coma, it feels as though years have passed while I slept. My mind aches with a sort of pain that cannot be described, for this is no physical equivalent. Perhaps it is the sudden shut-down of my rational thoughts that causes it, but whatever the reason, it leaves me unable to think for a long time afterwords.

My physical body too, is affected by this long shut-down. It aches in one constant hot wave, moving around to reach places in which I did not know could feel pain. I am left in a state of physical exhaustion because of the "rest" I had. My bed becomes the only place I am willing to be. I stay there for hours, thinking nothing, moving nothing. I am awake, but I lie still, being nothing. Sometimes an entire day passes before anyone forces me out of my state of nothingness. Each time I lay still for a little longer.

I wonder if someday I will stay awake long enough that when I give in I will simply never wake up.

The Wall

A white wall stretches out in front of me. It reaches out in both directions as far as I can see. It towers over everything, ominously looking down upon my diminished self. I think I might be able to see the top, but it really could go on for ever and I could just be tricking my mind into seeing the vertical end of the wall.

I need a way to pass to the other side of the barrier. It is an urgent matter, I remember, but the reason now escapes me. The surface of the wall is smooth, unblemished, and flawless. I was hoping to find footholds with which to climb, but there is nothing to be had. The ground too, is impassible, as it is frozen solid into stone. Instead I begin to walk along the wall to the left. The wall cannot possibly go on forever.

The whiteness of the wall continues as far as the wall does. It stays the same untouched colour, never changing and never fading. Soon it begins to blur, creating gray spots in my vision and begins to affect my balance. The white is too repetitive and hypnotizing. I start seeing other colours too now, blues and reds and yellows, all blending together in my vision, coloring the dull world. I know the visions are just in my head, but my mind has become reality.

And the wall continues on.

Intrusion of Sound

There is too much noise.

When it forces its way into the expansion of my mind it destroys what is there. The sound tears apart the long strings of thoughts until they are nothing more than shreds of ideas. The smaller thoughts are scattered, far from where they used to be and far from others similar to them. Everything becomes chaos when the sound breaks in.

The noise seeps into my mind, filling it with things that should not be there, foreign pieces of the world. The words of others are all around, and my natural defenses kick in, rejecting all that I hear. However, the defense only works for a short while. After that time, the thoughts and words render all my protection useless. Then, my mind is free for the taking and every idea that was once mine is replaced with those of others. My mind is no longer mine.

Even once I've run away from crowd and the noise and the chaos, the sound lingers. I can feel the hot breath of those words on my skin spilling from the mouths of the people from whom I have run. The silent place I have found only amplifies the battle raging on in my mind. It seems as though the physical crowd has simply transferred into my head.

Can I never have silence?

Scream

I wish I could scream into the darkening night.

I want to let go of the pressure inside me; of the stress building up; of the weight on my shoulders. I would be an earthquake, cracking the earth's crust open in order to relieve the uncontrollable energy underneath. Everything will spill out, blast upwards, fall everywhere, in an explosion of anger and sadness and frustration and freedom.

I want to feel my throat go raw from the shrill scream, over and over again killing my every hope of sounding normal for a long time afterwords. It will be a sound that is only ever heard coming from the depths of a person's soul. It will reach into the corners of the moonlit land and into the minds of all who can hear. Those who hear it may pass it off as the normal sounds of the night, but their souls can feel all the emotions rushing out in the sound of the cry.

But I cannot scream. Whether for simple reasons like the fear of losing my voice, or much deeper things like the fear of losing those around me, I cannot give in to that most primal desire. I cannot let the world know so openly.

So instead, I keep screaming inside.

When You Save Me

You saved me yesterday.

You made me laugh more than I have in a long time and gave me something to hope for. I felt whole with you, like how I used to feel. I did not feel ashamed of the things I did or the things I said. Even when I managed to mess things up, I knew it would be fine because you were there to hold me together.

Now in the morning of the next day I am back to where I was before. I can still feel the happiness of yesterday lingering, but it is in the background of the pain of now. I feel as if it were all a dream. A dream in which I was someone who others wanted to be around. Someone worth knowing.

I need you to save me again. Every day I will need you to save me from the world and myself. I fear that I may fall apart on the days when you are not there. But I cannot always depend on you to pull my out from my hole of darkness; I must figure out how to depend on my own strength. Until then I will just have to hope that you are near.

When will I be able to save myself?

A Dying Heart

My heart is thudding deep inside my chest. It won't slow down to let me rest. The way it slams into the sides of body feel like it is killing me, and the feeling reaching out in tendrils of hot white pain.

It should make me happy to feel the way that muscle beats. I have been wondering if I am even still alive. The sensation of something still assuring my existence should be a relief from the nothingness of before. Instead it kills me to feel this alive.

Perhaps the thudding of that mass inside my chest is not really a sign of living. It is actually a sign of its continuous dying. Every beat, every thud, every movement is just one closer to its ever-nearing end.

I wonder, would it be better than this?

Cannot be Saved

My savior could be standing right in front of me. She could be the one to pull me out of the darkness, to dig me out from my sinking grave. He could be the one to help me fix the broken ends and piece me back together. But somehow, I cannot seem to let him/her in.

I have always been the one to put others back together. I was the strong one, the optimistic one, the dependable one. I am the big sister, the "smart friend". Others are supposed to see me as the hero, not as the frail maiden who needs rescuing.

I cannot accept my own weakness, my own dependence. The help of others is something foreign to my very nature. It is not something I know how to accept. She may be my hero offering to rescue my very soul, but I am unable to let him save me.

Faith in the End

When the end comes, how many of us will suddenly change the faith they have?

Those of us who have always claimed faith will try to prove just how loyal they were to their god by proclaiming to others. They will become the announcers on the street, trying to "save" others from the eternal darkness of the religion they have always claimed. They will become the people who try to force faith down the throats of others, pretending that their belief was strong all along.

Those of us who have always truly believed will feel safe and indifferent to the plight of those around them. "They should not have turned away" they will say to the less faithful. They will stop trying to become better people, convinced of their eternal happiness guaranteed by what they have done in the past.

Those of us who believe there is no greater power will suddenly realize some mystical calling and try to make up for their sins of non-belief. They will search too hard to find a sign from the greater power(s) and end up convincing themselves that they were chosen to be saved. One day they would be rejecting a faith in anything but what they see, and the next they would praying like no one has ever seen before.

Whether the religions of today are true, changing the way we act on the last day will have no difference. We are who we have always been. Do not become someone who you do not want to be now.

Puppets and Heroes

I could have been a puppet
Following every order
Loyal to the masters who held my strings

I could have been a hero
Who rose up against them
Fighting for the weak ones without a way to speak

Instead I chose a life
Without purpose
Or meaning,
The middle ground that I thought
Would hold the answers
To all questions

In the end I found
That I didn't like the freedom
But neither could I stand
Being held up by strings

I left myself
Unsupported
Not needed
Alone

Wandering
The empty path
Of existence

Words Near the End

Hopeless
Worthless
Endless
Lifeless

Time
Night
Silence
Truth

Tripping
Falling
Screaming
Dying

Float
Wish
Whisper
Drift

Deep in the abyss

Pretend

I can pretend, if that's what you'd like. After all, it's no different from what I have always done.

You want me to tell you I am happy? I will do that. Sometimes it may be true, and I really am the smiling, laughing, bubbly being that I seem to be. Other times it may not be anywhere near that. But you will never really know, because I will tell you that I am happy.

You want me to tell you that I care? I will do so. Often times I will really truly listen to your problems, fears, worries, and accomplishments. I will congratulate you or offer you advice and show you that what you feel is what I feel and that I really want to help. Sometimes I will only pretend to listen to you with the kind of attention you think you deserve. I will nod along and speak good wishes and make up some advice. But you will never know the difference because it will be what you want to hear.

You want me to try? I will try, then. I will go through the motions and learn what I need to learn. I will show that I put in effort to what I did for you. Most of the time I won't do as much as I could. I will do what is required, but I will not care enough to give it my all. Perhaps I will occasionally really dive into something. But it most likely won't be what you want me to care about. But you'll never know, because it will turn out as you required.

You can ask me if I really mean it. You can say that you know I often times pretend. But you will never really know, because only sometimes will I be telling the truth.

Tell Me

Why did I tell them? It was foolish, uncalled for, a pointless decision.

I wished for understanding and instead confused myself. I was so sure before I spoke, but the minute it left my mouth I wished to pull it back into my mind. I grabbed at the words and instead found nothing. There was only empty space. Where once the idea was concrete, unmoving, suddenly it became wild air, avoiding capture and definition. Or perhaps it was just their reaction that made me question myself.

I should have kept them in the peaceful dark. The issues are mine alone to deal with. No words from the outside should alter my decisions, no foreign thought contaminate them. The burden should not be shared when there is no benefit from sharing. I can deal with the world myself. There is no need to hurt others in the process. I care enough about them to wish them to be obliviously happy.

The input from them would not be of any help. Not much can be learned from those who do not understand. No matter how much they may try or how many times they may say they understand, never will they know enough to give the help I thought I needed. I should not have asked for something they cannot provide.

I should never have told them. I should never tell again.