My Confessional

10. Moonlight Lane

"He knows what it does when he's holding me tight and he calls me moonlight too." Lyrics from Ariana Grande's soon to be new album, Moonlight. Lyrics that bring up the darkest part of my past and the fantasies of the future. A line that has everything I could ever want, love and a brighter future, for my life to change, three things I felt I could never get.

I've always had a strong association with the moon, from the moment I was born until now. Attracted to the darkness, the loneliness of the night sky, and the beacon of hope that was the light radiating around me at my most vulnerable, becoming the energy I need to keep shining. "Just one more day," a repetitive line that I say everyday in my head, "It'll get better, you just have to keep going".

Early 2012, the year that the monster I've tried to avoid my whole life is finally working his way back to kill me. The year of constant darkness looming over me, a cloud of ash destroying everything I was in one gust. From escaping, away from the pain and the person who cut me down every chance they got, to being thrown back into the frozen water. The sting of a thousand knives as I sunk deep under the water, and no one noticed, I made sure of that.

"Disrespectful little shit!", the bus that he drove into me, crushing all the bones in my body as I was left to bleed out on the pavement while everyone walked by.

The same bus that would come by everyday, leaving me in the hospital to recover, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for months. Scars left from the tires are nonexistent on the outside, only visible on the heart he shattered. Pushing it all away, kind of a defence mechanism that never fully kicked in. Trying as hard as I could to make myself as cold as stone, If I didn't feel emotion, I wouldn't feel hurt, some days I wish I was.

"He's just a fucking little brat that always gets what he wants! How is that fair!", when you know a person is talking about you, it's hard to ignore, impossible even.

So I lay here, my head buried deep within my pillow as the tears break the surface of my chocolate eyes. Voice crying out from emotional trauma, coming out an inaudible whisper as pain swallows me whole, pain that's never went away. Defenceless and out of energy, the more I fight the more I drown and soon, I know I'll never float back up.

Depression takes many forms and still has the same basics for everyone it consumes. Effecting everyone a little differently, for me it was like someone punching you in the shoulder. Weak at first but the more it persists the stronger it got until there was nothing I could do but defend. Put my heart through the bullets until there was nothing left of me to break.

Everyday after school it was the same old pattern, get home, chores, sometimes homework, dinner, then bed. Having something I liked was dangerous because in the end it would be taken away or used against me later. Bedroom bound, the safety of my own walls was all I had along with music.

Since my grandma was extremely strict when my mom was young, going through her bedroom and taking away things when she didn't do chores and such. Mom's fear was ending up like her as a parent so she made one decree, "Hunter's music can't be taken away".

I lived in my room to take shelter from my stepfather's reign, scared to death of being whipped by the words that destroyed me over and over. I feel like he would be an amazing friend and maybe even coworker but not a father figure. Reality was too hard for him, an excuse to slip into that toxic syrup that infected my family.

Alcohol gave him a new place of security, slowly killing everyone he came into contact with. If you give a young sprout liquor, it'll die and that was true with him. A part of me died, the naive little kid in me was hit by that bus that day and he never survived. In return, a rebirth of me took place, turning innocence into wisdom, the reason most people call me "an old soul".