My fingers push on the metal, flicking out the blade in a practised motion. A thumb pushes against the catch and I slide the blade back away.
Push. This time slower, smoother, letting it slide almost sensuously out. The clean -snick- sound as the catch clicks into place beneath it. The slight glisten as the light catches the edge, making it look lighter, friendlier... shiney, new... the sparkley object of any magpie's desires. My eyes trace the smooth edge from point to it rough, hacking hilt.
I turn it slightly where I lay, looking at the tip. Blunt. Not so blunt that it wont pierce things, but too blunt to be effective. The metal edge by the tip is crinkled from too much use. It really needs sharpening.
My thumb runs along the side of it, caressing the damaged edge all the way to the safety catch.
This time I wrap my hand around the closed knife. My knuckles show white and I close my eyes.
The belt clip digs into my palm as I hold on too tightly, and there it is again. The urge to open it. The urge to slice through things. The urge...
But no.
I shakily reach across to my bedside table and put the knife down. The resounding 'No' in my mind is feeble and quiet, but it's enough to make me let go and roll back over.
I've been in bed now 16hours. Maybe less. The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that I have to.
Temptation sits not two feet away from me, but I pull on some deep reserve and hold still till the feelings pass.
That reserve seems depleted lately. Maybe I've been using it too much.
See, I hate them knowing. I hate the pity, the concern... it cuts deeper than any knife. It makes me burn with shame. Not just that, I see the pain it causes some of them, and the impatience it elicits in others... neither of which can I stand.
So here I lay. Waiting to be able to face another day.
It's harder when there's nothing to go do. Nowhere I've promised to be.
Nothing to do with people.
I have plenty to do. More than enough to fill a life time if I'm honest. But I can't make myself want it. Can't make myself want to get up and do anything. Not unless it's for someone else.
It's like this every time.
Falling back into the pattern of living for others.
Unable to drag my sorry ass out of bed for anything less than a friend.
It makes me so angry.
You'd think that would help!
Being angry should wipe away the emptiness.
But it doesn't. It makes it worse.
Because I'm now angry at myself, berating myself... it's like beating an already cowering dog... it just makes it worse. It's rather pathetic really.
I turn onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.
Blank, staccato white stares back at me. The light coming through my thin curtains is that of the day now, rather than the street light. The clock on my wall reads 5pm... it's wrong. I glance at my phone, limp and helpless on the pillow next to me, and can't be bothered to unlock it to register the actual time. I've just realised I don't actually care.
Sighing, my hand curls around a cuddly toy.
There's three of them in my bed. Some times there's more, but these are the three that I make sure are there with me - not fallen down the back of my head board or left downstairs. Stitch, BonBon and Sugarcube.
Normally I would only cuddle one of them to fall asleep with. Lately I've needed all three of them all night. I've even taken to taking them down with me to cuddle on the sofa in the kitchen.
The soft fuzz of a donkey kisses my hand, and I draw Sugarcube closer.
I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to hold him tight, but having him pushed gently against my chest helps a little.
Another reminder of the closest person in my life. Li bought me Sugarcube - the newest addition to the family - for my birthday this year. He's small enough to be hidden in two large hands, and I love him.
My thumb strokes down his back, the urge to read the tag in his ear again wells up a little, but I already know it by heart.
Every time I'd read it aloud to someone they said it was just like Li.
It had been my first thought on reading it too.
"Sugarcube
...the helpful little donkey...
...He'll carry you through life when you need him"
I want to walk though. I want to stand on my own two feet and not need anyone or anything...
I bite my lip, trying not to think the word that loves echoing round my head lately.
"Weak."
It's like a mantra.
Some little person seems to be squatted in the back of my mind whispering
"You're weak. You're useless. Pathetic. Too weak to get out of bed. Too weak to fight back. Too weak to win. Not good enough..."
Sometimes that voice is so loud it drown out logic and every other thought there is. I really have to confiscate the stupid things megaphone.
The really annoying part is that the warrior princess that used to stand tall in my mind and be my strength seems to be lazed around somewhere, eating chocolate, saying "ah, what's the point? Just give in already. Take the easy route for once. I'm tired of doing everything for you."
(Which, I have to remind myself, is completely paradoxical... how can part of me do everything for myself and this be a problem?)
So I lay and think about nothing.
My to do list keeps running through itself quietly. The "URGENT!!" label next to 'Essay' flickers up and makes me feel even worse. But it's being quiet for now, and I lay in peaceful unease for a little longer.
Finally I swing myself out of bed though. Toilet. Clothes. Food. Internet.
The prospect of a shower is hindered by the fact that it may cause the kitchen ceiling to collapse... we'll leave that till tomorrow.
It's almost like moving through a dream at times though.
Time seems to run on without me.
One second it's 2pm and I'm checking some things in the kitchen.
Next it's 5pm and it's dark in the kitchen.
I'd think that I'd blacked out, if I couldn't retrace all of my actions. I can, and I can sort of see how they've added up to 3 hours of wasted time... but the perception is still confusing in a way.
In my dazed actions there's been a constant weight. An embarrassment that I keep trying to bury under explanations, justifications, jokes...
It all revolves around the explicit and my behaviour.
Not only have I been psychopathic lately, smashing things and clawing skin; I've also been ridiculously sexual. To the point of appearing to be either a slut or an underpaid prostitute.
My mind justifies it as
a) missing Will
b) PMT
c) hiding from my real feelings (like, perhaps, actual love)
d) a way to escape feeling sad
e) a display of confidence and fun...
None of it matters though. None of it justifies acting like a complete ass.
I think the mask slipped a little on Thursday though. Managed to fix it firmly back in place and only a few people saw the cracks underneath, but still - the worst part is that I hadn't realised how much of a mask it was until that point.
Welcome to breaking point.
So, the weekend arrives and here I am. Dazedly wandering around a practically empty house after spending a majority of the day in bed.
A pile of work waiting for me to wake up out of my stupid day-dream/nightmare (daymare?).
I sit down at my desk, poised at the laptop... but I don't even open my work. I open facebook and msn.
Why?
Lonely maybe. I'm not sure.
There are a few things to be flicked through on facebook, and a few people to ignore on msn... why is it I always log on there and never find the person online that I want to talk to?
Fate, I decide, and close a bunch of conversations that aren't going to go anywhere today. Boys, mostly, who have a way of drifting in and out of my life; taking what they can while they're around, and being shoved as far away as possible when I can't take it any more.
The latest in a long line of hopefuls has started to loose hope. He doesn't even push for more conversation when I brush him off.
I'll feel bad about that later.
Oh well.
I get to talk to my best friend for a while at least.
In a way it feels good to chat to him. In another I feel like a fool. Like I've been letting him down - like I still am.
Double edged sword I guess. Admiring and loving someone... it makes you want to be the best you can be for them... and when you fail, it's both a comfort that they still love you, and a stab of shame that you've disappointed them again.
Promising to do the work, to get better, to fix everything - I let him go to bed, knowing that all the best intentions in the world are not going to make tonight any easier.
I fight the urge to log off and get in bed. My safe haven.
It's looking at me with a rumpled 'come back..?' stare. Unblinking (since my bed has no eyelids) and unshaken. Just there, pleading silently to be snuggled. Wanting to hold me again.
My bed has become the ultimate metaphor for the man I never have.
Patient. Loving. Warm. Comfy. Always there...
One day I'll realise that a man like that would drive me totally insane.
That I would want to kick him for not being impatient with me. That his unwavering love would make me want to push it as far as it could. That he would be too warm, that I like the cold. That him being there for me would start to feel like being crowded and I'd just want him to go away...
But no matter how hard I tell myself those things, my heart still has this little bit of hope hiding in there. That bit of hope that says "With him, though, it'll be different. If you love him, and he loves you, enough... everything will always be perfect. You'll make it perfect."
My heart is a romantic really...
Probably why it gets hurt so often.
I found these past few weeks that I can love someone so quickly it hurts. That I give out my heart left right and centre. It's like I don't know how to hold back.
But I can't hate.
I try; and people make me so angry I would gladly hurt them like mad...
But I don't hate them.
There's still this feeling of "once I've beaten you to a bloody pulp... I nurse you back to health and care for you."
I can't full on hate.
It just... it doesn't compute.
It's like my switch doesn't work. It's stuck on "love".
If I had those tattoos on my knuckles that say LOVE and HATE... mine would both say Love...
Either that or LOVE and LIKE...
Some people are stuck on the Hate setting.
That makes me feel so sad in a weird way.
It's like... hate just seems to hurt people so much.
Okay, granted - Love hurts too. But in that... that worthwhile way.
Like childbirth. It hurts like hell, but it's worth it to hold that sweet little creature at the end.
Love hurts like hell, but it's worth it - even if it's only to have a connection with someone; even if it's only for a few moments.
Because those moments lift you up. They make the world shine in different colours. They make the beating of your heart mean something.
I've been so badly hurt over the years through loving people.
So bad that I might never get over it.
But I wouldn't take it back.
I wouldn't give up loving any of the people I have, or do...
Because even through the pain, and even through the life changing events, and the abuse, and the rejection... through all of the shit that people and life have thrown at me... there's this goodness shining behind it.
Like a silhouette... the shapes that have been drawn by my past are disturbing at times, and horrible - but the colour of the sunset behind them is brilliant, beautiful, and softens the blow.
My own words from nights before echo back at me to prove me wrong though.
"How can someone say they love you, then you hurt you so much?"
Li had my head cradled against his shoulder, one hand in my hair, the other clinging to my shoulders as I cried. My hands grabbing onto him, holding him so tight my fingers were getting cramp - but unable to let go or loosen my grip.
I felt his breathing become tight and slightly jumpy with emotion
"I don't know... I don't know" He whispered into my hair, rocking me slightly. There were tears in his words, though I couldn't see his face to see if they were in his eyes as well.
I wondered if he were thinking about Luke, or whether he had been pulled into his own past.
The thought of him being hurt brought on a new wave of tears. It was only because I knew he wouldn't want me to cry over him, or the past, that I managed to clamp down on them. Swallowing them down, down, down with the pain.
Okay, so maybe it's not all been worth it.
Maybe I'd like to be able to close myself off and not give myself away any more.
Maybe I'd like to be strong and happy.
But lets be realistic here.
I finally click on the little icon reading "Assignment" and load up my work.
Time to start using that dwindling IQ of mine for something other than obscure speculation.
I cringe at the memory of my IQ test result this morning. 119... damn, when did I get so stupid?
Time to start thinking again me thinks! (see what I did there? yeah, that's why I need my brain back)
Wish me luck!
May your days be filled with wonder and happiness,
and if your fortunes take a turn for the worst, may you have the strength and courage to deal with them.
Blessed Be xx
Push. This time slower, smoother, letting it slide almost sensuously out. The clean -snick- sound as the catch clicks into place beneath it. The slight glisten as the light catches the edge, making it look lighter, friendlier... shiney, new... the sparkley object of any magpie's desires. My eyes trace the smooth edge from point to it rough, hacking hilt.
I turn it slightly where I lay, looking at the tip. Blunt. Not so blunt that it wont pierce things, but too blunt to be effective. The metal edge by the tip is crinkled from too much use. It really needs sharpening.
My thumb runs along the side of it, caressing the damaged edge all the way to the safety catch.
This time I wrap my hand around the closed knife. My knuckles show white and I close my eyes.
The belt clip digs into my palm as I hold on too tightly, and there it is again. The urge to open it. The urge to slice through things. The urge...
But no.
I shakily reach across to my bedside table and put the knife down. The resounding 'No' in my mind is feeble and quiet, but it's enough to make me let go and roll back over.
I've been in bed now 16hours. Maybe less. The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that I have to.
Temptation sits not two feet away from me, but I pull on some deep reserve and hold still till the feelings pass.
That reserve seems depleted lately. Maybe I've been using it too much.
See, I hate them knowing. I hate the pity, the concern... it cuts deeper than any knife. It makes me burn with shame. Not just that, I see the pain it causes some of them, and the impatience it elicits in others... neither of which can I stand.
So here I lay. Waiting to be able to face another day.
It's harder when there's nothing to go do. Nowhere I've promised to be.
Nothing to do with people.
I have plenty to do. More than enough to fill a life time if I'm honest. But I can't make myself want it. Can't make myself want to get up and do anything. Not unless it's for someone else.
It's like this every time.
Falling back into the pattern of living for others.
Unable to drag my sorry ass out of bed for anything less than a friend.
It makes me so angry.
You'd think that would help!
Being angry should wipe away the emptiness.
But it doesn't. It makes it worse.
Because I'm now angry at myself, berating myself... it's like beating an already cowering dog... it just makes it worse. It's rather pathetic really.
I turn onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.
Blank, staccato white stares back at me. The light coming through my thin curtains is that of the day now, rather than the street light. The clock on my wall reads 5pm... it's wrong. I glance at my phone, limp and helpless on the pillow next to me, and can't be bothered to unlock it to register the actual time. I've just realised I don't actually care.
Sighing, my hand curls around a cuddly toy.
There's three of them in my bed. Some times there's more, but these are the three that I make sure are there with me - not fallen down the back of my head board or left downstairs. Stitch, BonBon and Sugarcube.
Normally I would only cuddle one of them to fall asleep with. Lately I've needed all three of them all night. I've even taken to taking them down with me to cuddle on the sofa in the kitchen.
The soft fuzz of a donkey kisses my hand, and I draw Sugarcube closer.
I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to hold him tight, but having him pushed gently against my chest helps a little.
Another reminder of the closest person in my life. Li bought me Sugarcube - the newest addition to the family - for my birthday this year. He's small enough to be hidden in two large hands, and I love him.
My thumb strokes down his back, the urge to read the tag in his ear again wells up a little, but I already know it by heart.
Every time I'd read it aloud to someone they said it was just like Li.
It had been my first thought on reading it too.
"Sugarcube
...the helpful little donkey...
...He'll carry you through life when you need him"
I want to walk though. I want to stand on my own two feet and not need anyone or anything...
I bite my lip, trying not to think the word that loves echoing round my head lately.
"Weak."
It's like a mantra.
Some little person seems to be squatted in the back of my mind whispering
"You're weak. You're useless. Pathetic. Too weak to get out of bed. Too weak to fight back. Too weak to win. Not good enough..."
Sometimes that voice is so loud it drown out logic and every other thought there is. I really have to confiscate the stupid things megaphone.
The really annoying part is that the warrior princess that used to stand tall in my mind and be my strength seems to be lazed around somewhere, eating chocolate, saying "ah, what's the point? Just give in already. Take the easy route for once. I'm tired of doing everything for you."
(Which, I have to remind myself, is completely paradoxical... how can part of me do everything for myself and this be a problem?)
So I lay and think about nothing.
My to do list keeps running through itself quietly. The "URGENT!!" label next to 'Essay' flickers up and makes me feel even worse. But it's being quiet for now, and I lay in peaceful unease for a little longer.
Finally I swing myself out of bed though. Toilet. Clothes. Food. Internet.
The prospect of a shower is hindered by the fact that it may cause the kitchen ceiling to collapse... we'll leave that till tomorrow.
It's almost like moving through a dream at times though.
Time seems to run on without me.
One second it's 2pm and I'm checking some things in the kitchen.
Next it's 5pm and it's dark in the kitchen.
I'd think that I'd blacked out, if I couldn't retrace all of my actions. I can, and I can sort of see how they've added up to 3 hours of wasted time... but the perception is still confusing in a way.
In my dazed actions there's been a constant weight. An embarrassment that I keep trying to bury under explanations, justifications, jokes...
It all revolves around the explicit and my behaviour.
Not only have I been psychopathic lately, smashing things and clawing skin; I've also been ridiculously sexual. To the point of appearing to be either a slut or an underpaid prostitute.
My mind justifies it as
a) missing Will
b) PMT
c) hiding from my real feelings (like, perhaps, actual love)
d) a way to escape feeling sad
e) a display of confidence and fun...
None of it matters though. None of it justifies acting like a complete ass.
I think the mask slipped a little on Thursday though. Managed to fix it firmly back in place and only a few people saw the cracks underneath, but still - the worst part is that I hadn't realised how much of a mask it was until that point.
Welcome to breaking point.
So, the weekend arrives and here I am. Dazedly wandering around a practically empty house after spending a majority of the day in bed.
A pile of work waiting for me to wake up out of my stupid day-dream/nightmare (daymare?).
I sit down at my desk, poised at the laptop... but I don't even open my work. I open facebook and msn.
Why?
Lonely maybe. I'm not sure.
There are a few things to be flicked through on facebook, and a few people to ignore on msn... why is it I always log on there and never find the person online that I want to talk to?
Fate, I decide, and close a bunch of conversations that aren't going to go anywhere today. Boys, mostly, who have a way of drifting in and out of my life; taking what they can while they're around, and being shoved as far away as possible when I can't take it any more.
The latest in a long line of hopefuls has started to loose hope. He doesn't even push for more conversation when I brush him off.
I'll feel bad about that later.
Oh well.
I get to talk to my best friend for a while at least.
In a way it feels good to chat to him. In another I feel like a fool. Like I've been letting him down - like I still am.
Double edged sword I guess. Admiring and loving someone... it makes you want to be the best you can be for them... and when you fail, it's both a comfort that they still love you, and a stab of shame that you've disappointed them again.
Promising to do the work, to get better, to fix everything - I let him go to bed, knowing that all the best intentions in the world are not going to make tonight any easier.
I fight the urge to log off and get in bed. My safe haven.
It's looking at me with a rumpled 'come back..?' stare. Unblinking (since my bed has no eyelids) and unshaken. Just there, pleading silently to be snuggled. Wanting to hold me again.
My bed has become the ultimate metaphor for the man I never have.
Patient. Loving. Warm. Comfy. Always there...
One day I'll realise that a man like that would drive me totally insane.
That I would want to kick him for not being impatient with me. That his unwavering love would make me want to push it as far as it could. That he would be too warm, that I like the cold. That him being there for me would start to feel like being crowded and I'd just want him to go away...
But no matter how hard I tell myself those things, my heart still has this little bit of hope hiding in there. That bit of hope that says "With him, though, it'll be different. If you love him, and he loves you, enough... everything will always be perfect. You'll make it perfect."
My heart is a romantic really...
Probably why it gets hurt so often.
I found these past few weeks that I can love someone so quickly it hurts. That I give out my heart left right and centre. It's like I don't know how to hold back.
But I can't hate.
I try; and people make me so angry I would gladly hurt them like mad...
But I don't hate them.
There's still this feeling of "once I've beaten you to a bloody pulp... I nurse you back to health and care for you."
I can't full on hate.
It just... it doesn't compute.
It's like my switch doesn't work. It's stuck on "love".
If I had those tattoos on my knuckles that say LOVE and HATE... mine would both say Love...
Either that or LOVE and LIKE...
Some people are stuck on the Hate setting.
That makes me feel so sad in a weird way.
It's like... hate just seems to hurt people so much.
Okay, granted - Love hurts too. But in that... that worthwhile way.
Like childbirth. It hurts like hell, but it's worth it to hold that sweet little creature at the end.
Love hurts like hell, but it's worth it - even if it's only to have a connection with someone; even if it's only for a few moments.
Because those moments lift you up. They make the world shine in different colours. They make the beating of your heart mean something.
I've been so badly hurt over the years through loving people.
So bad that I might never get over it.
But I wouldn't take it back.
I wouldn't give up loving any of the people I have, or do...
Because even through the pain, and even through the life changing events, and the abuse, and the rejection... through all of the shit that people and life have thrown at me... there's this goodness shining behind it.
Like a silhouette... the shapes that have been drawn by my past are disturbing at times, and horrible - but the colour of the sunset behind them is brilliant, beautiful, and softens the blow.
My own words from nights before echo back at me to prove me wrong though.
"How can someone say they love you, then you hurt you so much?"
Li had my head cradled against his shoulder, one hand in my hair, the other clinging to my shoulders as I cried. My hands grabbing onto him, holding him so tight my fingers were getting cramp - but unable to let go or loosen my grip.
I felt his breathing become tight and slightly jumpy with emotion
"I don't know... I don't know" He whispered into my hair, rocking me slightly. There were tears in his words, though I couldn't see his face to see if they were in his eyes as well.
I wondered if he were thinking about Luke, or whether he had been pulled into his own past.
The thought of him being hurt brought on a new wave of tears. It was only because I knew he wouldn't want me to cry over him, or the past, that I managed to clamp down on them. Swallowing them down, down, down with the pain.
Okay, so maybe it's not all been worth it.
Maybe I'd like to be able to close myself off and not give myself away any more.
Maybe I'd like to be strong and happy.
But lets be realistic here.
I finally click on the little icon reading "Assignment" and load up my work.
Time to start using that dwindling IQ of mine for something other than obscure speculation.
I cringe at the memory of my IQ test result this morning. 119... damn, when did I get so stupid?
Time to start thinking again me thinks! (see what I did there? yeah, that's why I need my brain back)
Wish me luck!
May your days be filled with wonder and happiness,
and if your fortunes take a turn for the worst, may you have the strength and courage to deal with them.
Blessed Be xx
