If You Only Knew

II.

What am I doing?

The footsteps behind me finally cease, but I continue pushing myself to go. I don't even know what I'm running from anymore. Them, or myself. What I've become. My heart aches. Every muscle in my body has strained themselves for what I believe has been a long run. Definitely more exercise than I'm used to doing. Paranoia seems to get at me when I begin to slow, making me think they're still behind me.

I don't need their help.

Okay. That' a lie. I don't want their help. Just thinking about who they are and what they stand for crawls under my skin. I'm not a basket case. I'm not some freak that has to be looked at from underneath a microscope.

I just need to be understood.

I can't run anymore. Every emotion I've kept locked away in the depths of my heart have finally revealed themselves. I didn't want this to happen. Everyone always talk about the emo-suicidal teen, but I never thought it'd be me. My thoughts are too much to contain. Head spinning, I try to find comfort in knowing that it would have been over.

Would have.

An angered sigh escapes from my lips. I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. I'm once again trapped in my own mind with nothing to distract me from it. Thoughts make themselves a tornado, whirling in my head. I can't take how helpless I feel. That I'm completly vulnerable to every thought, action, and emotion of those around me.

I want out.

My mind wanders to the person I was. Happy, pure of any hateful thought. I was free. Free from any insecurity, and from everyone who made me feel like I was nothing. I was somebody. I was important. I was loved. Not just by those who knew me, but by myself.

What happened to me?

I notice tears streaming down my face when my cold, wet shirt cings to my chest. It's probably best that I walk into the woods or something. If keep walking openly like this, someone's bound to find me, and take me to the exact place I don't want to be. I'm numb beyond my own control. Every fiber inside of me has been misshapen and torn. I no longer have the energy. I'm utterly exhausted from trying so hard to be what society wants me to be. From pretending to be what I expect of myself. Stressed isn't descriptive enough. Actually, it's more than that. It's not stress. Hopelessness? Maybe just not caring anymore. I don't have the will to try. It's not fear of failing because I don't care to fail. I'm just floating. Here in a world that only sees a mask, covering what pain lies beneath. It finally hits me when I think this through.

The bridge.