book of words

error screen

In the pitch black of the night, between the stillness of the land and moon, childhood memories creep up on him.

He hates them.

Slow, squirming, pulsating creatures of venom, he calls them, that dig their way into his skin, and fester and squeeze and wrap around his veins and his lungs, around his neck and the flow that keeps him alive. Between every cell and crack and bone that holds his feeble vessel together. They bubble in the gaps of his teeth and the hairs on his skin and the corners of his eyes, in his cavities and greying, bleeding fingernails.

And eventually, much faster then he would like, he isn't able to push them away anymore. He isn't able to cling on to memories made from nothing. He can't pretend anymore- no matter how hard he tries to get back into the groove of falling asleep to memories projecting from the inner wishes of his mind, the memories aren't real the creatures of hate and vile and garbage say.

And the memories he makes up, the memories that never happened, the childhood he imagined, a world full of candy and rainbows, it slips from his grasp and he's left with a null. Empty 0's and 1's and purple-black checkered boxes with file names and zip codes replace what he worked so hard to build up. He knew cracks would slowly start to show their way through, and he couldn't hide from the blinding vivid blue of an error screen anymore, with a frowny face to cherry-on-top his pitiful excuse of pretend.

He tries to think of summer nights stayed with his sister and his mother, having fun and licking popsicles and eating cherries. He tries to think of him being cradled in his parent's arms as a baby. He tries to think of a happy childhood full of quiet and undisrupted peace at school. He tries to think of playing on a playground with happy faces all around him and him going home to see his family, talking to him and listening to him and being there.

He can't. He can't.

Because the suicide attempts and the touching and the victim blaming and the yelling and arguments and screams and neglect and pain and abuse and static noise come back and he can't. Pretend. Any more.

So much for sleep and peace. So much for convincing himself that nothing bad had ever happened to him. So much for convincing himself he was born with niceness intended for him, with a good heart and a quiet happy childhood and family members who listened, because little-miss-wannabe-silent has showed through his fantasy world of heroes and villains and good and evil.

He failed.

Tomorrow is a new morning and he will wake up to his land of window chimes and music and nature and quiet, and he will have a smile plastered on his face, and he will drown out the noise of his barley-there family and replace it with smiley faces and emoticons and music notes.

But for tonight, just for tonight, he will be cold.