Mind, have mercy.

3:00 a.m.

Saturday, April 20, 3:00 a.m.

The font and size must be set, the spacing changed.

Times New Roman, 12 pt, Double Space

That's how we learned it. No other way is acceptable. Irritation will crawl under my skin, my irrational, uninvited guest.

It was 2:58 a.m. My laptop showed 12:58 a.m. – a time zone difference I didn't bother to change. I make video calls across the lag often enough.

So many thoughts. My heart beats quick and heavy. I feel it against the mattress when I lie on my chest. Neck and back muscles ache from rebellious tensions that refuse to fade. My hands won't shake, they rarely do, but I feel awake at 3:09, when even on my hardest nights Morpheus accepts me.

I know what I did wrong, of course. I was on my phone too late. My bed must now be lied on. Fortunately, my literal one is quite comfortable.

Sometimes, my thoughts drift back to high school. That god damn place. That hell-hole. Voicing my distaste for it frightens me, like I'm making a dangerous confession.

I would never promote violence. I never did, for all my dark humor. That was a coping mechanism, because inside I was weak. I was hurting. I thought of the awful things people did to each other, knew that as I lived a comfortable life, as I sought peace and comfort under my covers or in my family's expansive country yard, whose grasses persevered green during the winter, someone else was raped, or killed, or starving.

What could I do?

I was a coward, still am. I was weak. I needed armor to guard my soft heart from reality. That armor was humor.

I didn't think much of it, back then. High schoolers made inappropriate jokes all the time, ranging from lewd to edgy. I recall one student who joked with our teacher all year about having a hitlist. She would allude to people that bothered her, describe what they did, and say she wanted to throttle them, or perhaps even say the world would be better without their idiocy. The teacher would occasionally reference some nameless person she wanted her to get rid of.

They were never serious. We all knew that.

Then something big happened that caused a nation-wide panic. Kids were still joking. My reference group, the group I idolized, joked about one of their members preferring to shoot up a school. Once or twice.

They were never serious. We all knew that.

Thing was, even if they weren't overly talkative, people knew them. They weren't silent. They all had good reputations. As far as I know, they never got in trouble.

The problem with me was that I was silent. I didn't hate anyone. My insecurities just ran deep.

I had this problem with my emotions. They didn't react when I thought they should, and visited me when I didn't want them. Most of the time, they felt distant and muted, as if my mind was stuck in the Cryogenian Period. Everything was covered in ice, but somewhere deep below it was a vast, dark ocean of tangled happiness, self-loathing, pain, rejection, and loss.

When I saw the people around me, I saw kids with friends and social groups: connections. They integrated just fine, made friends easily, at least, I thought so. Meanwhile, I struggled to care for the girl I'd invested nine years in. I felt obligation to keep our friendship alive, but I didn't love her. I hadn't felt love in so long I had forgotten what it felt like, aside from painful.

Granted, I had crushes, both platonic and romantic, that were all equally agonizing. I felt longing, a desire to be comforted, and a desire to belong, but not with most people.