Insanity

Madness creeps up your spine.

You never expect it despite all the years it spent taking root in you.

It uses its resources to grow and prosper like a well oiled machine until it doesn't.

Where plants soak in water and sunlight, it soaks up all your emotions buried deep beneath the surface of the top soil and everything you spend your life learning, memorizing.

Once it's gathered all it needs, once it's constricted you like a snake, once it's done playing games, the angry tears and spilled blood are the last thing it needs to grow large enough to begrudge you your sight.

It's intimidating, it's comforting, it's new.

You're terrifying, you're calm, you're not the same.

You never realized here all along.

waiting and watching, becoming the net at the bottom of the tightrope for when you fall off the edge. No, it's not over yet.

Now you question everything that ever was, everything that is, and everything that will be. If the madness is your friend, then your friends can't be your friends because they aren't friends with the madness. It's crazy. It's irrational, it doesn't make sense, it's insane.

doesn't get along with others.

You want to be alone. You want it to be quiet, once. once you'd like it to be quiet. Having quiet once it would be so nice.

Something has hold of you, something inside you has been , and it can't be replaced and it can't be fixed, but nothing's perfect, right?

Damn people. How can you trust what they've taught you that you can't trust them at all? They're not your friends like they say they are. They don't understand like they say they do. Hell, how do you know that this isn't some prank, that they're not filming you? How do you know you're even human?

that's why you've felt so out of place since the day you were . that's why you can't think anything through or make friends or convey your feelings in words or your memories or care about yourself.

God the way the blood twirls in the water of the tub is so pretty. You wish you could take a picture, but no camera or phone could do it justice. you could take pictures with your eyes. You're taken from your thoughts by the sting of the soap against your thigh. At least you now know for sure, without any doubts, you are not, in fact, a robot.

You recite your identity to yourself to try to calm down, but it doesn't do you any good. It goes to show how trained they have you. Nothing that you say sounds real; it makes you feel crazier. This routine is so hard, and better you could be doing. You've got to be here for something more important right? You probably don't fit in because this isn't your destiny. 're special. matter. matter. Where would people in your life be without you now? This is your cross to bear.

You go to turn off the faucet of the tub, but already turned off. You could have sworn still pouring water. The vines of madness curl and coil around the door handle and the window. You've been so stressed , relax for once.

The walls of the shower are closing in on you. It's so damn quiet. No one's interrupted your train of thought, the universe is trying to tell you you're a .

They're going to lock you away, and you'll lose everything you worked for up until this point. You'll grow up alone like this, nobody has to know. A vignette darkens your vision, and you feel like you could fall asleep. The bath has gotten pretty red. Your mother's going to kill you if this stains the tub.

Your skin crawls. You can feel each individual cell in your body working hard, moving, squirming, living, breathing. That's all you are, millions of cells working towards a purpose, like a stack of midgets in a trench coat. You're not even real. You're an animal. 're the predator and the prey. Your own worst critic, you can't help it, you want yourself to stop being so mean to you.

Do the cells in your body understand that they're wasting their time on you? Were they the cells that clog your mind and put you so on edge? Are those cells in your body all that you amount to? A collection of living beings working so you can sit on your and think yourself into oblivion? They're crawling, they're inside you. The DNA they carry with them as their sacred text taunts you, reminds you about everything you hate about yourself.

There's a knock on the door. You jolt out of your thoughts, and you try to move, but your leg is so sore. The water was so pretty.

She asks if you're okay. You laugh. She asks you what's so funny, and you don't know. You say you're fine and you'll be out in a minute. You tell her you love her, but the words make you want to gag. start to cry. The soil fills up with more water, and the vines soak it up, for you, that way you're not walking through mud. How polite of it.

She's fake. An hour ago she put you down and made you feel like raw and defenseless self-consciousness. Now she wonders if you're okay. Now she cares about you. , she wants you to cook dinner. It'd be so easy to poison her food. She's a walking medical disaster as . It wouldn't take much at all.

She doesn't even realize what she said, she doesn't care, she doesn't know. you're overreacting again. this is normal, you need to relax, it's all in your head. But , that is the problem.

You get out, you clean the tub, and return to the same halls and rooms in which you've spent nearly your entire life. Something that happened a years ago flashes before your eyes. It feels like yesterday it happened. Time feels so blurry.

You skipped your depression again. You skipped your vitamins again.

didn't brush your teeth or comb through your hair.

look at a pile of books you haven't read, a pile of work you need to do. 'd rather sit and do nothing than do that, so you do, you sit, and you stare at the wall, and you feel like you might as well sleep.

talk to your closest friends, and you feel better, but there's something that's still not the same. can't look at yourself the same way. Looking in the mirror feels like you're looking at yourself from another person's eyes. You're not that person in the mirror. the mirror took your identity. It feels like a movie.

It feels like you're posing for an audience that you can't see, that you can't interact with. feels like a still frame, a single image you'll remember for the rest of your life. reminds you of another, when you pondered to yourself, wondering deep down if you thought about this moment hard enough, would remember it in the future? The answer is every time. Yet, for some reason, that image of yourself is hard to get your eyes away from. It's beautiful and you hate every last flaw, it's hideous. You wonder if your self-esteem actually changes the way you look.

But wait, there's light, there's hope. He feels the same way that you do, you've been apart for so long for no reason. He loves you. wants to save you, and he does so . takes you away from her, and he holds you tight, making sure that piece stays right where it's supposed to. But he welcomed the crazy right into his home. You feel awful for burdening him, but he doesn't mind. You're not crazy, and this is real. He's real. You can feel his skin, that iota of human contact, the warmth radiating from his muscles and his veins. How you feel about him, it's real. You lie in bed next to him, your face buried in his warm chest, not caring how hard to breathe. This moment is real, it's happening. His soul, it's real. You're real.

The madness is at bay, but your sanity is at bat, its arms and legs bound as it tries to fight for you, as it tries to achieve this last home run. Neither have control, neither are polluting your mind, and both have been aside so you can enjoy this moment for once in your life. You don't have to be sane, you don't have to be lucid, you don't have to be anxious, you don't have to be thinking. You can focus, feel, understand, and love.

He leaves and returns every day. In his absence you fill your time with housework and video games, social media and Netflix, writing and drawing. But the silence that suffocates the leaves the door wide open. Thoughts flood your head and you question your intentions. Is it all solely for attention? You're not in control of your body as you sit and you stare into empty space. What is it that you're missing? What piece of the puzzle don't you have? Why are you like this, why can't you move?

You smoke so you don't have to think about it anymore.

You go numb so you don't have to fight anymore.

work so you don't have to care anymore.

dream so you don't have to waste time anymore.

plan so you can get the hell away from misery.

make goals so you can be happy.

Make little ones, big ones, and make them happen.

You do, that way you don't have to not do.

You do so that you can be.

can be happy.

can be happy.

will be happy, someday.