I live for her

Chapter 7: R-E-S-E-T

You probably guessed that I didn't have the balls... to commit suicide. I just want you to know that you are wrong. (It would have given me so much pleasure to describe a gruesome scene of me having attempted to stab myself to death - but still surviving...). Unfortunately, that didn't happen either. Believe it or not... school saved me. Somehow, something I've always hated because of grades and feeling hurt when people believe their worth is found in their grades. But... school saved me - as well as my photographic memory and audio memory. I wanted to kill myself last night - I'm not lying, I wanted to die. I really wanted my heart to stop toiling and my consciousness to seep out of my body as blood seeped out of my body. (It would have been art: to watch my life ooze out of my blood vessels.).

But, poetry saved me. Okay let me be more precise: Wilfred Owen saved me.  

"One night, if thou shouldst lie in this Sick Room,

Dreading the Dark thou darest not illume,

Listen; my voice may haply lend thee ease." Was what Owen said in the ending lines of his poem "On my songs". I walked back home for only one reason: the poem popped into my mind and I realised that somebody... understood me. Somebody gave me purpose - and somebody gave the piles of dark poetry soiling my room... purpose - all at the same time. The possibility of Wilfred Owen fully understanding me is as high as my mitochondrial DNA not resembling my mum's (which is basically impossible...). But he understands what it's like to not want to think and feel something. He understands me... His words mean something to me: as a tear drop jumps off my chin I conclude that my "dark", that I don't want to "illume", is my loneliness, my mother's hospitalisation, my dad's descent into alcoholism and abuse. And that's not the reason why I decided to not leave you all - at these skinny twig-like fingers of mine. That moment sparked an epiphany in my mind: my poetry... isn't useless. This guy, the poet, Wilfred Owen, he's dead - but he's still saving lives... or at least prolonging them. I... want to do that. I want to make the invisible feel visible - long after I'm dead. The realist in me smiles, because I could save more lives and help others more with my poetry than all the knowledge a degree in medicine could bestow upon my mind. Perhaps that's the point of all these crappy feelings... to express in words what many keep caged inside: maybe, I can only help people by accepting myself with all my flaws instead of wanting to die or wanting to change. "Everyone has their own share of suffering," someone once told me. And out of my suffering is poetry. And out of my poetry is making the lonely feel less lonely. I can fucking help other people. I want to help other people - before the day my demons win... I want to have helped other people. I'm a poet... I don't give a flying fuck about "Mac Daddy Leroy". All I care about is making the insecure figure in my bathroom mirror realize he shouldn't abhor himself and harbour thoughts of suicidal gore. So that one day he'll reach Old Age's shore and smile because his life wasn't a bore - after walking through the self-acceptance door. I am who I am... I need to convince myself that I am who I am. I'm a poet, a potential life-saver for those invisibly drowning in the unseen pools of loneliness in their heads. I'm not who my dad says I am, I am not who Max says I am - but I am who my poems say I am. I was an occasionally suicidal teenager (I believe writing that down will make it more... believable.).

***

I'm crying. And I don't mean to. I'm crying because every single voice in my head says no one wants to listen to what a fifteen year old has to say. I'm sorry, Pessimism has a leash on me. I'm sorry, that I can't free myself from it. You see, when I walk too far, the leash pulls me back - but as I walk away from his hope-decimating aura, I feel free. I feel like I have hope... and I can only taste hope for so long... until Pessimism's leash tugs on my neck, like a noose - except it never hands me over to the Grim Reaper. I'm sorry, that I'm crying. I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm so fucking sorry. I'm scared... scared of what she'll think of this me, the new me that Pessimism's killed. I'm scared that resurrecting him is pointless, because his life - the life I'll live. It entails obstacles such as finding self-confidence... and interacting with strangers... and following the gut that can't help but moan each time I walk by a sad face knowing I have poems I can use to paint a smile onto their faces - triggered by the feeling of being understood too and... feeling visible. I want to help people... but my mind says people are scary - and my mind says Emily won't understand. My mind says I can't get this poetry out there. Conflicting Confusion is not my middle name... It's the name of the sea that drowns me in a mental melancholy. 

I dump my body onto my bed so that I face plant. I... cry myself to sleep - but nonetheless I fall asleep: it's... needed at times like these. When filth swims about the waters of my brain because sleeping resets my brain.

A/N: The journey was never meant to be easy and smooth.

So, Leroy claims he's on a leash being controlled by pessimism. Who knows what that's like?  To feel hope and lose it all in a split second due to your mind's thinking.

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Once again - thanks for hopping onto the train 🚉 - Choo-Choo!
And remember to spread love, life and positivity 😉