Scared is what I am, more than anything, I think. There is nothing anchoring me to one place, nothing to lend strength and promise that I will reach solid ground. Adrift, unsure of where to face, and without energy to paddle, I am utterly, completely, absolutely lost.
How many out there are fighting a similar battle as I am? How many are as afraid? How many turn to fragile words of gossamer, flung blindly into the proverbial void, hoping it would latch on to something -- anything worth clinging to? Worth staying alive for?
It hurts me to think that this sanctuary I have made for myself has turned into a cloister of demons malign and malevolent. No more do I speak of idle day-to-day ramblings. No more do I write about love lost, gained, and lost again. Whatever it was that colored my world in the years past -- no matter how silly or shallow or profoundly sweet or cruel (sometimes both at the same time) -- everything has melted and drowned away. Watercolor canvas on too much water. Letters thrown into the flame. All that is left is a blackened room of ash and fragile things, crumbling to dust at a moth's touch.
And then there is guilt. Guilt that perhaps, all this -- all that is crippling me -- is a whole body of nothing. All that needs doing is to look up from the ground, brush away the dirt from one's clothes, face the sun, and walk again. Lesser people have overcome, why not me? Other people are facing even worse battles, why do I flinch away at the first few strikes?
Shame settles onto my face like an angel -- beautiful like benediction -- and it cripples me further. Give this life to someone more deserving, I say. I do not honor anyone by being alive. Let no stories about me linger when I pass on.
Let no one know my name.
