I was facing the wall, not trying to take a nap, but I told the guys I was going to sleep until we reached our destination. Simply spending the hours losing myself in my own mind, well aware it wasn't good for me. If I told Mike how dangerous it really was for me to get lost in my own head, he'd probably never leave me alone. Being in my mind is like walking through a sketchy neighborhood by myself.
My thoughts travel back to my teen years and how hard they were for me. Always home alone until I went to school, where I'd see Charlie, then go home to be alone again - the cycle would repeat. It was especially hard trying to move on from my childhood with nobody around me. I felt socially awkward after everything, so I had little to no friends in high school. Tortured by my memories, I took a razor to my thighs and legs, a temporary release which would last moments.
The first time I self harmed, it wasn't long after I moved away from Charlie. Maybe it was strange not to feel pain, so I inflicted it upon myself - I didn't know what cutting was at the time, I was so young nobody talked about self harm, it just felt appropriate. I didn't do it too often, just here and there, but once the loneliness at home started to become too much, I became addicted.
My legs still have scars, they look like unnatural wrinkles besides the ones that protrude from my skin. At first glance, you could tell I mutilated my legs long ago. I'm almost certain the band has seen my scars at one point or another, but I'm so self conscious about them. They're on my legs because I wanted them to stay hidden, that much hasn't changed.
I slowly decreased the amount I was hurting myself a day when I started smoking weed. A friend claimed becoming more forgetful since smoking, so I decided to take on their offer when they asked if I wanted to try. After smoking for a while, I realized it was helping keep my nightmares at bay. I switched from cutting to smoking weed and cigarettes, though I did still occasionally self harm. When I didn't have weed, I would drink - sometimes do both. I was home alone so much, it's all I ever did at one point.
I started getting hardly any effect from weed by the time I was eighteen. It would still keep my nightmares away, but I couldn't really get high anymore. I'd take tolerance breaks, but they didn't help. I started exploring other drugs and drinking, but I'd still always go back to weed. Perhaps because Charlie didn't like it.
On a few of the occasions during high school where Charlie persuaded me to hang out, I would insist on smoking weed and cigarettes. Charlie claimed to hate the smell and would stand a specific space away from me, but I could tell he was trying to regain my trust because he never told me to stop. He was still an asshole to most people and let it show, but his switch of kindness towards me just proved he wanted to get close.
The thought reminds me of an occasion where I knew Charlie was going to try something, but it was another event I just chose to ignore. He said he wanted me to come over and drink with him while his mom was away. I wasn't comfortable, so I responded with I wasn't sure. He promised Sean, our common friend, would be there too, but he claimed that before and Sean said he was never invited. I turned down the offer, but he kept suggesting it every now and then. Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I went.
I still wanted to believe Charlie was trying to be nice to me because he felt guilty for what he did, but now I think he feels nothing towards the situation at all. He might've wanted to rekindle it, but it was clearly hard for him to keep up his act. Occasionally he'd slip up and make weird comments like how I cut myself even though he couldn't have known that or something sexual, it was nearly impossible for him to even pretend being kind to me. In the end, he just saw me as his property.
A song pops into my head, an underground Linkin Park song that didn't quite make the cut. It started off as an old poem I wrote, I showed it to Mike and he turned it into a song. I could tell at the time he really wanted to know what it was about and I couldn't say. It's about escaping what I went through as a child and how I'm still feeling it with every new struggle. Charlie awakened this permanent fear and sadness, it all comes back in a single hiccup.
Where should I start
Disjointed heart
I've got no commitment
To my own flesh and blood
Left all alone
Far from my home
No one to hear me, to heal my ill heart, I
Keep it locked up inside
Cannot express
To the point I've regressed
If anger's a gift, then I guess I've been blessed, I
Keep it locked up inside
Keep my distance from your lies
It's too late to love me now
You have never shown me
It's too late to love me now
You don't even know me
Breaking a part of my heart to find release
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Breaking a part of my heart to find release
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Breaking a part of my heart to find release (Break)
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace (Me)
Breaking a part of my heart to find release (Too)
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Keep it locked up inside
Keep my distance from your lies
Breaking a part of my heart to find release (Break)
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace (Me)
Breaking a part of my heart to find release (Too)
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Breaking a part of my heart to find release
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Breaking a part of my heart to find release
Taking you out of my blood to bring me peace
Keep my distance
Keep my distance
Keep my distance
Keep my distance
Spit drips from the jaw of the witless witness
Cryptic colloquialisms shift your mid rift
Dog-paddle through a bog of shadows and smog
With my thought catalog, analog, rap battle log
Keep my distance, and fear resistance, hurt by persistence
The twisted web of tangled lies strangles my hope to waste and numbs the taste
And I'm forced to face these hate crimes against the state of being, feeling the weightlessness, press me to the ceiling, reeling around rooms, riding a bubble of sound
Tuned to the frequency making your chest shake with every boom, involuntary muscle contraction
Ignoring your neck's breaking, musical gas fume euphoria
The sound pounds to make the dead flush
To hand you a head rush with read rhymes and said stuff
YOU ARE READING
Purified - Bennoda
FanfictionChester is clearly reliving his past through his nightmares, but is unwilling to open up to the rest of the band. Uncomfortable and confused, he's unaware of the hurt he's bringing to himself. His heart and soul feels lost, it's up to someone to bri...
