A Bloody Smile In The Dark

Like a rubber band until you pull too hard

Is this what it's like to go crazy? When I thought of losing mind, I imagined shrieks and whimpers, convulsions, bad hallucination-like head trips. I've been going through the latter all my life but, without asking for it, i seem to have found another quieter way to suffocate just by laying here on a random hotel bed thousands of miles away from what i used to call home. It's numb, tasteless and mostly flat; so much that an emotion as strong and feeble at the same time as sorrow would be a sad yet welcome relief.

Listen. I know you can barely hear me and surely won't believe me. However i want to try to get to you somehow. We both know you're capable of climbing out of the hole you dug yourself into. We both know your heart is still beating, and for that alone you should force yourself back on your feet to fight. It's like an almost out of liquid bottle that's been passed around at a party; you can see right through it because it's made of glass and the pictures it shows are blurry, out of focus. Everyone's having a blast with this object that isn't theirs but makes them feel good, although temporarily. Everyone but its very owner. No one is paying attention to the residue at the bottom of the bottle. It's blackish, thick and probably not drinkable anymore but it's enough to keep them from throwing it away 'cause it's not empty yet. See, I like to believe that the dark substance is your love. All it'd take is some water to melt and stir it a bit, but who drinks water at parties?

You were never one for crowded places but do me a favor. Please. Love.

Love what you want. You hurt no one by having a heart and using it.

Put your best foot forward in the morning. Apply your eyeliner like the wings of a butterfly and paint your lips so red that they look like crimson sunrises over this beautiful ocean. Wear short skirts to show your strong thighs and shirts so tight your push-up bra's in full glory. Basically, proudly put on what makes you feel like the soldier ready for battle that you are. For once, kiss the mirror instead of punching it and do it like it's the lover you long for. Let no one call you selfish or conceited for refusing to mold by their rules and for god's sake, don't let anyone call you stupid! Bite back like the venomous snake you are!

We only get one life and we're only young for so long, so love. You'll regret when it's too late not to treasure the things that move you, and they'll be ripped from you in far more painful ways than the ones you hide behind now. Watch The Lion King on repeat, smile broadly and sing out loud. Dream about a princess worthy fairytale wedding, not a cheap Vegas elopement. Buy some flowers every week and lose your shit whenever you see a dog. Play with the snow when you're blessed with it and fuzzy stuffed animals when you're not. There's still time for you to have a job and be in touch with reality. Whenever it happens though, do NOT stop dreaming. And love every minute of it.

Love like it was your last day. Hug people without thinking; just do it. Hold them tight and breathe in their scent. Let your heart grow in size. Cry at commercials, cry at football games, cry from laughing hard at your favorite movies. Don't be afraid to show emotions, to show you're alive. The only behavior which is unnatural and plain wrong is pretending to be unaffected by the world around us and its little things. Sing along to Taylor Swift and Slipknot in the same day. Sing along to whatever gets your blood pumping and don't ever apologize for liking something. Go with it. And love every note.

You deserve to love, and you deserve to love loudly. Be proud of what you hold within you.

Love and be happy. And never apologize for what takes you there.

I'm surely going crazy. It's just around the corner.

I was never one to talk much. Every draft of thought or reasoning would always get cut short at the first two words. Nobody ever gave my mind a chance, not at home nor in school, and after a while i stopped too. At twenty i feel like i've lived a million lives and met more living things than anyone could aspire to in real forms. Through fictional stories written or played out on a screen, through melodic lines that'd serve as background to my fantasy; i lived. And i mean it in a sincere way. It all meant so much to me... But no one ever cared enough or at all to lend me an hour of their precious time just to listen to me. To let me empty all my mental folders and close the various windows i opened over the years that i never shut for fear of forgetting, of losing those frames, bits, pieces, crumbs of new existences that could've been, and i held on tight; because any possibility, especially if imaginary, is a valid excuse to stick around to see how it'd go. To trivialize it, it's like when you browse the net and suddenly find yourself with tens of pages open at the same time, maybe random people's blogs, and you can't remember where that one picture or text or news you wanted to see was, so you don't have the courage to close said pages or you won't find them again. Simultaneously, you cannot figure out where the automatic music comes from and maybe you don't even like what's playing; so after hours of frantically making order on your portable universe, panic hits you, your stomach tightens, you start sweating and the music gets louder even though you didn't touch the volume control. That's when you shut everything down at once. It's all gone. You're left alone with your reflection in the screen, drowning in the regret that among the things you were sorta looking for, might have been something life changing; as crazy as it sounds.

Computers have the history option, you say? Not the old ones. You remember those big chunks with dozens of wires connected to as many devices and what not, right? The kind to carry softwares so rusty and annoying that they would crash every two minutes just by moving the mouse too fast, making you discover new saints to talk to every day.

Consider a beaten up brain made to believe it should always stay shielded keeping to itself, and compare it to those old school computers. Both machines, the former being prone to more painful damages. Damages you carry with you, visible and not, even when the software is about to die.

Meh. Here i am, prime example of what happens when you try to converse longer than the usual. I get lost in the middle of my own sentences. And then sentence after another, until i forget not only the sentences but myself as well. So i close my eyes and wait for the noise to fade away. Slowly...

I believe my life is sterile. I am unbloomed, unused, unable to properly feel. I am often moved, sad, unhappy beyond cold unhappiness, beyond any inconvenience that will spur reactions from others. Never been kissed, never been touched, never been looked in the eyes in a loving manner, never had my hair caressed, never been hugged so close to leave me speechless, never been told a tender word... Never. What's terrible is the longing that resides inside of the depths of my heart for all of this. Just once. To see what it's like. Not to die with a huge hole in my soul deriving from the lack of human passions i so dearly dream of. I want to cry; i focus on the back of my eyes and the darkest corners of me, but i cannot even weep a little. Nothing.

However, all considered, i don't think i'm empty. No. Every day I do one thing that eases my pain. I listen to my stupid music or read my stupid books, and that's the best time and way for me to deal with the tiny monsters in me. When i do that, I get to wake up from my numbness a bit just as they go to sleep. After all, destroying a life from within surely must be tiring. While they sleep i'm able to know them better; i pick them all up one by one to study them attentively. They're cute little green goblins with a sad pout and pink puffy eyes that never close, not even for slumber. They never really look back at me, but while i feel them slouching in my hands as if they trusted me not to hurt them, I'm almost sorry for them.

Alright then. I'm not done yet.

Love. It will be your alibi when your parents come asking where you buried your own body when you disappeared without a trace. Or when strangers will slam into your lifeless body down the street, apologizing for thinking they saw a life but mistook it for a rock from afar.

Love your birthdays and have one for every month you survived. Enjoy a meaningless cake full of candles celebrating the birth of the sack that was meant to carry your swollen soul. Don't be afraid to eat too much. Actually, stuff your face and smear the sugar all over your neck, your hands, your belly, and let it glue to your skin like a chalk outline from a crime scene. Picture yourself hovering your dead body at that scene; i dare you to list me her flaws. I dare you to explain to me why her pigment is so grey and hollow. Remember, that is you right now. You're barren, guiding your so-called existence from the outside. You have a choice though; you can re-enter your body and bring it back to life, or leave it to rot mercilessly. Listen to me, give yourself a second chance.

Love as a form of peaceful revenge. Lick clean the very knife that stabbed you, and leave your tongue wanting more. Put it down and use your remaining strength to tear down the shaky walls you spent your life building. Don't be afraid to live, love and fiercely welcome the person who could climb over your home-made fences if you let 'em.

You have survived so many times before, why not again?

Even when your life ends, parts of you will linger on. I promise.