Pain-stained Journals | Anthology

1 | Freedom

When I was away in prison for something I didn't do, I used to think that I will never feel freedom again. Time passed while I was in my prison cell. Me being there was a great joke. I never aspired to be a criminal, but life made me surrounded by people who committed injustice acts. I feel abandoned, I always felt like it.

Freedom sounds delightful, but I don't know if I will ever get the hang of it.

Killing somebody is like locking yourself in a cage without a key. You enter the cage, and you throw the key away. This is a cage of your nightmares since you are the one that locked yourself up in it. When you are in that cage, that means you have completed the most vicious act of all. Hearing the last breath of someone you killed is what you will remember for the rest of your life. The cage is not empty. You are inside in pain because you have just thrown your life under the bus. When killing someone you just stop, you stop your freedom. Freedom will never be present, freedom of your mind, freedom of your choice, freedom of your breathing is something you will never get to experience again. The cage is locked, and you will never get out. Killing somebody is a choice that puts an end to your free mind.

I am glad I have never killed anybody, but I was locked into someone else's cage. But I had the key. Key to freedom. After spending many years in the four walls of my cell, which I used to call home, I knew that I won't ever get to call my past home a place I can feel free. My past home used to be a place where I live with my family. I have no close ones now; they hate me to death.

I doubt I will ever see the face of my son and I doubt I will ever get the chance to kiss my wife without feeling guilty about it. They didn't know I didn't kill anybody. But they listen to the people. My family thinks they know the story better than I do. If more than one person tells a false truth, then later on it becomes the living truth. I don't blame them.

I know how convincing the false truth sounded. One man is in a room with four men holding a dagger with a fury in his eyes. Lights off rushed movements and a scream. By that time, I was no longer holding my dagger, it fell to the ground. The lights went on again, and I saw the room empty apart from a lifeless body on the floor. Blood was spilling from it for what seemed like infinity. All three men left, and I stayed. I couldn't move when I saw that body. I couldn't even think. All my thoughts were left with the death of that man. I heard the police siren beaming in my ears. Knowing they were close; I made a life-changing decision.

I despised my life, living in a house where I pretended that I was a successful man. Instead of being successful, I was broken inside. My house was falling apart, and I knew that this decision was the most selfish one because once they locked me in someone else's cage, I felt the heart of my son and my wife filled with emptiness. I did it for myself. I hated it there. How long can I lie that it was a family from my dreams?

When they locked me up and threw me inside a police truck, I felt like a doll. A doll you can do everything with because it's an object. People turn into objects according to others when they do something inhumane. Objects have no feelings.

I am an object who just got out of its cage.

On the first day out, I already want to lock myself up. I can't manage the loneliness, guilt that I feel. Nature I am staring at tries so hard to soothe me. I doubt it can. Birds crippling around me just bring fury into my heart.

My heart no longer feels pleasant feelings. Hatred, doubt, fury, sadness, powerlessness, helplessness and hopelessness are the feelings I feel when I am finally free. Free is not the correctness a not correct word because I don't feel the taste of freedom I technically should feel right now. Being in that cage taught me that a wall is my best friend. That wall, opposite my sleeping place and next to my window, helped me ease my pain. I was hitting that wall with my head to get rid of the pain I felt in my heart. Thoughts are clouding your heart when it comes to feeling pain. Physical pain and emotional pain bring chaos to the human heart. Hitting a wall is like covering your destroyed heart with uneven thoughts. When you feel pain in an unwanted place you can bring pain to the wanted placemaking that first one end. I did it countless times. My heart used to remind me that I am a living monster. A monster that feeds off people he once deeply cared for. I killed my heart because every beating of it was reminding me what I feel. I no longer felt my heart, so I decided to stop it.

Feeling emptiness in my heart brought me to try to clear my head forever. I couldn't manage it because my brain always outsmarted me. Having no thoughts means having no emotions because when you think of something it brings an emotional spark that appears in your heart. A thought, one second thought, and it can change the way you feel.

I used words to manipulate. When I was living with my family, I knew how to say words I didn't mean to get what I want. All of it came from my childhood, where I was taught the hard way how to always get what you want unless you want to be alive. Having a monster as a father made me a monster as a father. I couldn't bring myself to break out of the scheme because once you choose to punch someone you love, then there is no turning back. It just starts and never ends. No action heals what you have done to your child's body, heart and mind. Therefore, I choose to leave them because I have always brought them pain that will never leave.

Every evening in my cell I stared at the ceiling until the sleep cut me off. I saw my wife's and son's terrified eyes just seconds before I beat them. That sight never left my head. When I close my eyes, they open their eyes. My head is not a safe place to be in, at least until now.

When you want to feel free you have got to open your heart and your mind. I did it literally. An empty head means an empty heart.

I watch the sunlight beaming at the shore. It is time for me.

I just jump to end it. End the life of mine when I know what I was doing the entire time. Those were my choices. When you are beaten up over and over there is a chance you will go on and do the same because you were raised that way.

The water feels warm, I hate it. I didn't like warmness because it felt strange. Surrounding myself with coldness made me used to it. Warmness feels like a fire on my skin. It burns me.

I take a deep breath and I try to remember it because it is the last breath I will ever take. I go deep inside the water and feel how it spreads around me, licking me with its liquidity. When I go deeper inside the water, I know I am close to dying.

Killing myself was not in my plans up to this afternoon. The first hours out and the reality hit me hard. It is easier that way. I am a coward. Countless ways can lead me to peace, but why would I choose them when I know they require effort?

I open my mouth one last time and feel the water enter it. As it spreads me entirely, I close my eyes. They have witnessed enough. Enough of terrible things. They stayed with me the entire time as I was making my horrible decisions repeatedly.

I don't care what people will think and do when they see me. Killing yourself is your choice, and it is not for anyone to judge. Coward enough to make it, I did it.

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What happens when we die? Do we fall asleep to an endless dream? Or is it just empty tidiness? We wonder about that ourselves when the time comes. That time comes for every one of us.

Terrifying moment

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Awaited moment

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Relieving moment

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Death is viewed from different perceptions.

Death is final as final is a dot at the end of a sentence.

Rest in peace.