‘I just can't do this anymore. You never talk to me.'
Even if he did have the words now, there's a lump in the back of his throat causing him to clench his jaw. As she walks out the door, his mind is stuck on the ways he failed.
3. He thinks maybe it would help if he tried to talk. But then he knows his voice would crack, and he refuses to cry in front of someone so hurtful. Refuses to be that weak. He keeps his mouth shut, and the tension builds. There’s not much air left he can breathe.
4. When he gets inside, he throws himself into the mosh pit, actively seeking out the middle. He’s so tired of his home, so he loses himself in the music and the movement, careless of the bruises he'll see in the morning. He feels exhausted and desperate as he lets himself get sucked into the circle pit, moving more violently, all elbows and knees, forgetting himself more completely.
5. He stares into the mirror under the harsh lights, studying his pale skin and the way his eyes are scrunched up from just being opened. He moved the eyeliner back to his right eye, painting his face. Today he is someone else, and he will not miss his home or his family or his friends. Not right now. When he gets to the concert area he plays his guitar for all it's worth, enjoying the way the sound bounces off the shouts of the crowd. After he's done playing, he lets a nameless, loveless face shove him against a wall and kiss him. He’s got nothing better to do.
He glances down at the hands running up his shirt, over his ribs that he knows stick out, dipping into the cave between them. He can't remember the last time he ate- but who cares? He doesn't want to be in all the magazines he's in. He doesn't want to be at all. The only thing he's doing now is losing himself in the fame, becoming invisible under the spotlight.
6. He throws his head back and laughs, feeling the cool night air run down his throat. All the windows are open, and they're driving fast down an empty road. He’s pretending his problems don’t exist tonight. He hands his friend twenty bucks as they pull into the liquor store parking lot. Tonight, they're getting ripped wide open. They down the alcohol, get wasted, spill all their problems, and fall asleep in the car. The same thing that always happens. The same thing that manages to help.
7. He leans back on his empty bed, in his empty hotel room, on this empty, humid day. He lets his head loll over the side; the heat is pressing in around him, making his body sticky with sweat. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a ratty old t-shirt, waiting for something to happen. Anything, really. The past five days he's been feeling so numb.
Today, he's just waiting to feel something. Something real, even if it hurts, because now he's feeling less and less alive. Even if he's left screaming, punching a wall, he just wants there to be something in his life worth living for. Worth fighting for and worth breathing for. He just wants something.
8. Again, he's holed up in the small bathroom of the tour bus. Or, really, this morning; he knows the sun is starting to come up. He’s sitting in the little bench connected to the wall across from the toilet. His left arm is laid out in front of him, resting on his knees. His sleeve is pushed up past his elbow. In his right hand, he's holding onto a slim, shiny blade he extracted from one of his shaving razors. He holds his breath as he moves the silver object just above the skin of his arm.
He wants to see how far he can go. He wants to do something he's never done, something amazing or something repulsive. Letting out his breath, he drags the razor lightly across his arm. A thin red line appears, slowly starting to bubble up. He didn't press hard, so he's surprised, but he figures it's just because the blade is new. He moves the blade again and again, smiling at the little bit of release and control he feels.
At least he can do something right.
9. It's closing in on three a.m., but the traffic of people has yet to stop. There’s been a music festival in town for the past week, and the streets aren't clear until dawn. He’s sitting on the ground against a lamp post, watching the people cross the street. There’s a bottle by his feet he hasn't opened yet, and he can't take his eyes off a post on the building across the street.
His laughing face stares back at him, but he can't remember what made him laugh like that. He wishes he could because the world is feeling too cold and hopeless tonight.
10. She screamed at him in her angry way. Told him he didn't care about anyone besides himself.
He was fucking self-centered.
He was a waste of time.
He let his mouth move into a smirk, a grin, as she yelled, because it was the only thing he could do to keep himself from falling apart.
11. He was dressed to kill in an outfit he wouldn't be caught dead in, but it didn't matter since he hadn't been living much anyway. He felt sick at himself, but kept his smile on as he shook hands and made small talk in a cold hotel.
12. He had been avoiding everyone he knew, hiding out in parks and malls. Whenever they looked at him, he could see their pity shining out at him. He didn't want pity; sympathy, he would understand, but their pity was just sickening, even as they talked softly, creeping around him, they would throw back-handed insults into almost every conversation. He didn't need their words confusing him anymore than he already was, so he stayed where they couldn't find him.
13. In his small, empty hotel room, he looks out the window, into the engulfing blackness beyond. He can't seem to find his reflection in the glass, with his arms wrapped around himself. He wonders how hard it would really be to lose himself out there, to lose all the things attached to him, to become nothingness.
Tonight, he feels like inky black, poison, loneliness of the highest degree. He downs the rest of his water, letting the ice cubes clink back to the bottom of his glass. Leaning over the desk pushed into a corner of the room, he picks up his pen, again.
"Dear Universe,
I think there's this monster inside me..."
© Copyright 2007 Abby Almon
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