Did I Kill Myself?

Behind sealed eyes I can hide from the world, where demons lurk within every crevice and every crack that this cruel Earth holds. This sleep is plagued by nightmares, but even the kind that sends you jolting out of unconscious with shrieks emerging from the dark depths of your mind are better than this bare reality. My bones buckle and quiver and click as I unfurl my body from the position it has been in for an hour straight. Most would consider a single hour of sleep to be insufficient, but I consider it to be a gift. You don’t get much paradise when your mind is haunted by ghosts that whisper deadly secrets into your ears. I can hardly register in my disoriented mind that it is four pm. It is hangoutwithfriendstime. It is playsportstime. It is havefuntime. For me, it is naptime. I am drained and I am exhausted after a full day of watching fluorescent lights reflect off fake smiles, of listening to pencils scritch scratch across meaningless papers. I feel as if I am a corpse, but despite the rhythmic pulse that echoes in my wrists, I know my lips are brushing against death. I drink and I eat and I breathe on autopilot, and my body believes that it is alive. My mind, however, knows the truth. It knows that I am withering and I am dying. I feel myself disintegrating with every intake of breath, skin dissolving and skeleton crumbling into microscopic grains of sand. As these thoughts drift through my mind, the crushing sense of loneliness washes over me, dragging my body underneath it’s powerful wave of agony as I fight against it’s current. I gag, gasping for comfort and security. No one will come rescue me. I will die from this ocean, I will die from this mind. I know exactly where I can seek relief, and I let my almost-corpse comply. Every muscle and tendon works in unison to bring the box of razor blades from under my bed, to touch the cold metal, to test the sharpness of the edge. Do I dare succumb to this addiction? Do I dare carve my soul into the soft surface of my skin? I cannot resist. The pale, smooth exterior of this rotting body taunts me. I can feel adrenaline roaring underneath it's surface, and I crave to feel the pure euphoria that accompanies my mutilation. Memories flashflashflash, streaming through my eyes like a rapid slideshow. Look at all the harm I have done, look at the faces of people that I have hurt by merely living. Guilt overwhelms me. It thickens my blood and coats my mouth and glazes my eyes. Heavy coils of it settle in the pit of my stomach, at the back of my throat. Discreetly it wraps itself around my muscles and constricts their movement, slowly tightening until every action requires great strength and struggle. As if in slow motion, I watch my fingers caress the forgiving blade and glide it across the inside of my arm, leaving a thin and straight line of red. A smile twitches at the corners of my mouth as I begin another alleviation. The razor weighs seventy tons, and I almost collapse underneath it’s weight. The beautiful, rising red drips, and with it comes satisfaction. Voices sing inside my head, a lullaby of ‘you deserve it,’ and I take solace in punishing myself. One more, one more scratch, and I will be able to breath again. The pain is addicting. I wouldn’t even call it pain, for there is no hurt I feel from these wounds. I must accept that I deserve it. It’s as if I take the ache and let it rush through my veins and spread throughout my body, renewing and empowering me. When I drop the blade and stare into my paintings, I almost wish I could tell someone about the things that crawl inside my skull. But if I let the words dribble from my tongue, surely they would retreat as I choke and stumble on sentences and vowels that couldn’t begin to describe the agonizing thoughts that grind my jaws together and press my nails into the flesh of my palm. Telling someone would mean certain death. Cars would crash and planes would dive nose down and earthquakes would shake the ground. Icannotwillnottell. I kiss my own wrist because I know that no one else will do it for me. I am completely alone. And then it hits me. Panic courses through my veins and the anxiety that has harvested itself inside me flares into an untamable monster. This very beast is present inside me at all times, but only in moments of absolute fear does it bare it's gnarled teeth. Horror, frustration, pain, horror, fustration, pain, it all strikes me with a blow more powerful than my fragile being can handle. I shriek in horror as I watch my skin melt from my frame and blood drip from my fingertips. I am dying. I am rotting from the inside out- my thoughts becoming so corrupted by this darkness that has seeped through my exterior that too much of me is gone to be saved. The undeniable reality of my insanity drives me into the arms of terror. I am running I am screaming I am cracking in half. The bones are shattering and splintering and I'm just so tired so tired and weak that I can't hold myself up anymore. I weigh a thousand pounds and my body is sinking sinking sinking into the soft calm cool earth and I just need to sleep. I just need to sleep and wake up weightless and free. I don't want to be in this rib cage shaped prison anymore. I can't stretch myself out into an infinity of fake smiles and polite responses. I can't fill the gaping hole that has expanded inside of me, consuming me whole and swallowing me into it's depths. I just can't do this anymore. And then- like the eye of a hurricane- I am calm. I feel myself collapse, so exhausted from this attack I can hardly keep myself intact. I feel myself slip into a state of half consiousness, unable to move due to the paralyzingly thoughts that plague my mind. And there I lay, numbness heavy as cement filling my body and turning it to stone. I have looked into the eyes of medusa, and despite staring back with all the vigor and courage I could muster she did not bring mercy upon me and I did not have the strength to resist. What seemed like seconds ago the world was roaring around me in a flury of agression, but now all I sense is silence. The fury has died down, revealing a quiet so loud blood seeps out of my ears and sinks into the ground. It allows my brain to be filled with thoughts that can not roll out of my mouth into the world, thoughts that can not be put onto little ships that will pollute the earth's oceans with my many troubled, diseased visions. It permits demons to scratch at my insides and monsters to scratch at my outsides, each carving their way through me until they meet each other, joining together in a dance of horror. It numbs my mind and fogs my mouth and dries my lips and sags my skin and cracks my throat. Slowly, like frost, it spreads across my body and leaves me incapable to breathe, for any movement would shatter the perfect, crystal clear covering that in prisons me. Is this living? My peers chat about parties, about boyfriends, about vacations in sunny, faraway places. How they radiate happiness and meaning, I don’t understand. Don’t they see all the pain and suffering that surrounds them? Are they blind to these horrors? When I try to shove combinations of words that could never possibly explain my feelings through my teeth, I am called crazy. And once again, the inescapable loneliness that seems to be forever clouding my vision fills my body with misery. You do not know the true taste of alone until you call out for help and understanding and no one sings back. With this comes sadness that permeates your soul until not one single fragment can be saved. It is as if I am trapped in a vicious, unbreakable cycle of isolation, anxiety and desperation. No, I am not living. I have died, and I can not be resurrected. I no longer see a point in wearing this suit of human, an itchy skin that’s only purpose is to cover our monstrous lives. I crave love, but more intensely I crave death. Oh, sweet death, the one constant in this life. I know I can speed up the clock, but do I dare end my own life? You hear the rumors of cowardice that surround a suicide, but I am a coward. I am a coward who wants to die. I am a coward with trembling fingers and an empty soul that serves no purpose but to feel a blinding pain that seemingly follows me with every step. Shivers run up and down my spine with cold feet slapping the hard ground that is my bone. I must die I must die it is my only need it is my only desire I must die I must die. Fashion a noose of scratchy rope. Drape it in a closet. Let it hug my neck with insincere love. It whispers to me sweet temptations of death and I have to give in because I have never felt a more softer and comforting surface than the rough contour of this very noose. And I am crying and I am laughing but I am not feeling. I lean forward, and suddenly with no further thought, I know what I must do. Did I kill myself?