Neverland [ ✓ ]

Day 1

ENTRY:
8:22 AM

Origin, birthplace, roots..

Home, maybe?

These words are all described with such simplicity, as nothing but a basis- as if it'd make no difference were one to have grown into adolescence within the confines of a steel cage or a luxurious mansion. Which is... wrong, of course. 

I've always felt there should be a word in existence with a more complex definition. If I had it my way, I'd see it down to a science. I have no doubts that one's... say, origin- no, home- can make a significantly different turnout of someone. 

Here or there, this or that. It can give birth to two versions of the same soul, can it not? And isn't that terrible? That power? One's home is absolutely everything- the people, the environment, the start. It's strange how other's view it so insignificantly. 

Although, they are only words- or, a word. 

Truthfully, I may be the strange one placing so much emphasis on this idea of what home truly is for a person. I admit, with lack of opposing views, it could really mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. But regardless, I've clung to it tightly and permitted it to consume my attention. It's an obsession of sorts, though I'd prefer it be described as a refined interest, or maybe somewhere in the middle- a fixation. 

It has shaped me as I believe all of our origins have, each and every one of us. It's what starts you onto a predestined path with trillions of ends, it starts you ticking like a clock from the time you're born and fates you to be who you become.

It creates predestined Samaritans, politicians, your family men. But it goes farther and wider than just the normies, it's without restriction; there becomes sociopaths, narcissists, and psychopaths. And maybe the saddest of them all, sometimes it gives way to those who are doomed from the start; depressed, anxious scum that cannot function under the heavy hand of society. Can you figure? 

They're the ones that leap from trees with ropes tied around their necks.

Home harbors the seeds of all of these flaws, ends, and traits without discrimination. To me, it's purely conceptual. Maybe even perceptual, if you will. You could call it ones childhood, but I never found that that quite fit, either. The inevitable span of being a child doesn't mean anything. Being born into existence doesn't mean anything. 

It's everything.

I started back there years ago inside four walls, folded within a small town, crammed inside of a country with the people I knew, the things I saw, and the environment within which I was cultivated. I blame it all, I even hold some form of resentment for it; although, I don't entirely recall it, but I might with some persistence. I know it has something to do with everything. My life and my ways can't be solely my fault, I refuse to believe that. I wasn't born this way.

Now, I wonder, am I merely a sinner for not fighting this path more? 

Or am I only human? 

I can't tell the difference. I've been gripped by the desperate hands of this... thing, and it's been my puppeteer for as long as I've had no feasible cure, controlling my wants and needs. I've been so helpless to my own inexplicable crimes against myself and others.

Should I be punished? 

I've thought on it for hours on end. I've thought.. maybe, maybe I should be punished. But then again, would you punish a child for having cancer? Tell them that this unwarranted, crippling illness is their doing? No, no one sane would, I'm sure. It's just the cards that have been dealt. And for that, I think I may have the ability to find penance. My condition today is no less fixable. Right?

I can only wonder if I could treat it.
If I should even attempt to treat it after everything.

After a while, it gets to you, I suppose. It comes with age. As life drags on, you begin to realize that it has been made up of things you wish it hadn't been. You begin to see the wrong's you've done. I feel like I may die too soon, now, before I have the chance to fully review and judge for myself if I can still be classified as- in the very least- redeemable. 

Coming back here is dreadfully overdue. 

Quiet, cold, and hauntingly familiar. 

My room feels smaller than I remember it being. But aside from grimy yellow crime tape strung and falling like broken streamers, everything is generally untouched. I feel- no, I know- I've stepped into a place trapped in time. Maybe it's a bit messier than I left it due to the raid that likely ensued following my leave, but otherwise? It's intact. It's not like I left this place neatly after I tossed around my belongings in panic, picking and choosing what came and what stayed.

Nonetheless, it does still feel like home- more than anywhere else ever has.

The navy blue sheets on my twin-sized bed are ridden with dust and dirt blown in through the cracks in the walls, they're stiff from weathering and torn in various places. Through the silence here, there's the soft scurries of little feet; definitely rodents. But I'm not bothered by it; in fact, I'm grateful. Silence can be deafening, after all, especially in places where life used to be so loud.

Beams of sunlight shine through tiny holes in the ceiling and speckle these rotting floors. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't like this before, but I am truthful when I say there were not yet this many flaws ten years ago. Across the room from my bed, looming idly on a stool, my old alarm clock sits. It faces me cracked and lifeless from the same spot I'd left it all those years ago. It's even still plugged in. Only god knows how long it took the thing to finally burn out and die of age. 

Looking at it, I feel nostalgic.