- N. Sorrow

The issue with the thought at hand is the fact I believe there must be an end to everything.

.

Yes, here I am. Here we are at the writing desk again, a desk with everchanging scenery, everchanging pens and tools that break after one use each, and then I curl up in my corner in longing, staring into the desk lamp light, waiting for someone to open the door and throw in a new batch of materials and slam it shut again. Alone in my room - woes me, whatever - waiting, waiting, time and time again until my hands can break the words from the edge of my throat.

.

And these words, I've decided long ago, were to belong to an ultimate end chapter. Since day one of the quill and inkwell I had decided that I would be writing my own demise; that these words which I write monthly, in the spark of stormwater and rising sea levels, would be my ongoing will and testament until I was too breathless to drown anymore.

.

Good god, I have made a grave mistake.

.

I have locked myself in this room and swallowed the key, and every time I am given a bobby pin of hope, I swallow it as well.

.

.

Craving, urging, longing for more - but what for?

.

.

.

I sit at this desk, a desk which now looks like a lawn chair on a balcony overlooking the crashing waves of Litchfield waters, and I bask in the idea that as long as I am creating, I will never be happy. No, I will never be happy.

.

.

He told me a few days ago - no, a week ago now - that though I do have a problem with the words I turn into poetry, it is only the core of the problem. Yes, I do this with anything to do with me, not just the words that I spitball into the void and hope bounce back to me in prettier colors, better formation.

.

.

He made me a planet. Grabbed my hand, and then a pen, and drew my brain in layers. Made my head spin, made my heart orbit. He drew it, quickly the first time then smoothly the second, and he pointed at the edges of the round shape and told me, "This is where it begins."

.

.

.

.

He said to me, "It begins with self care and health. That is the surface. Then below that layer is eating, sleeping, down and down until you reach the core, the molten core called Art." He circles the word with his pen a few times, the sound of the scrappaper scraping pouncing the wires of my timebomb brain with each drift of the ink. He said to me, "If you want to fix this, if you want to feel better, you have to dig up the problem. Start at the surface - get better - and keep digging deeper. Eventually the core will be fixed too, but if not..."

.

He pointed to the volcanoes he drew across the surface of my planet, he pointed at the mouths of the giant sleeping beasts and made an explosion with his pen, spewing out a foggy cloud of black that seemed to cover an entire section of the drawing, even with just a few lines.

.

.

"If not, the core will push through the layers itself, and you'll explode. You'll destroy yourself. You'll keep adding layers and layers, like nasty calluses protecting a scar that never heals. Do you understand now?"

.

.

He met my eyes with his, pretty ocean blues and greens filled with stormy worry. "Yes," I said. Quickly the first time, and smoothly the next. Quickly then smoothly, because it hurt to admit it. It hurt to look at the planet of my head, the build of my brain, that giant smokey cloud of black. I was burying the only thing that got me to open up to others, and deeper and deeper it went, deeper and deeper still, buried under an everchanging scenic base of worry and self-hatred, a core of creativity and wonder that I can never reach or tap into without digging past the layers of myself and hurting myself with every word I write.

.

.

.

I have made a grave, grave mistake.

.

.

.

But I am here. Writing, spewing, my mouth hot with lava and my hands fueled by slow motion of magma. It has been so, so long since I have been able to feel. So, so long since I've been able to look at the names on the screen, faces in the pictures, motion past the video, liveliness behind frames per second. And I know it's for the best - yes, I know why I'm forgetting the people who have hurt me dearly - but I can't help but wonder if I am dying.

.

.

Am I dying?

.

.

.

.

.

I have worked at three different places for three different eternities, all bounding me against my will because I cannot afford to leave, and can't afford to live even if I stay. I have worked hard, ever so hard - I've kissed up, broken down, stood upwards, bent over, spiraling in every sense physically and mentally and emotionally possible and yet I am here, writing at my desk, burying myself in a spew of molten lava, and I do not make a living despite being paid over minimum wage.

.

.

What. The. Hell.

.

.

.

.

.

I'm dying. That must be it, right? I keep avoiding writing one specific chapter, an idea that I've had and liked for so long, since the first eternity, because I worry that if I write the one thing that stays "incomplete" I will never return here. That corner is so lonely, so unforgiving, so cold and cramped and at the same time too open. No one could ever be close enough. No one, no one, no one.

.

.

I hate this. So much. I hate that people will read my last words, a novel of chapter-by-chapter of goodbyes, and will see my utter destruction before I am ever destroyed - I hate that they will think that the writing is only making matters worse, that sharing my trauma has been making it worse, that getting it off of my f*****g chest is making. It. Worse.

.

I hate that no matter how much I open up to myself, to others, to the pen and ink, to the desk and materials, to the monhtly spiral of stormwater and sea, I will always be a stranger.

.

.

.

I will always be a stranger.

.

.

.

God, I have made a grave, grave mistake.

.

.

.

.

.

The birds keep chirping. My feet are covered in sand, and happy blisters. My fiance brought me ice cream yesterday, gave me a kiss when he found me crumpled up on the balcony, behind my desk, my pen and inkwell. The place I know he hates to find me cooped up in. The place I know he thinks is poisoning me with every word.

.

I am at peace. The wind, the smell of the salty air, no restrictions of the plastic and blue and rubber gloves, for a full week at that. No calls or texts, no dodging into the aisles to avoid my uppers, to avoid my peers. No forced glancing into the cobwebs in my wallet. No apartment seeking, job scrambling, tax returns. Nothing but the air, the water, the balcony, the drop.

.

.

How nice it would be, to feel something again. Even if it were painful, even if just for a split second before going numb again, even if it were just in my imagination.

.

.

Why can't I imagine dying? Why can I feel it, so so deep inside me, so heavy and cold, but then feel nothing?

.

.

.

.

.

Sometimes I wonder if I stay here at night, if I watch and listen to those waves long enough, might they climb over wall and building, reach up to me, reclaim me?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A long pause. Staring into the endless blue, I

.

.

I've begun to lose my track of thought, in true honesty. I suppose it's time to row back into docks again, to call it quits for a few months, wait until there are fresh pens at the new desk. Wait to hear the slamming of the door once more.

.

.

My love, my lighthouse, my anchor. He calls me, and I must sleep. I must go back to my corner, suck on my thumb, I must wonder when things will be different. I must wonder when things will get better.

He tells me things will get better.

.

.

.

I only hope that he is right.

Author's Note

Ignore basic grammatical errors, as there are some rules that, as a writer, I don't care to abide by. I feel restricted when following these rules, and since I have such a hard time getting my thoughts across, I'd rather break a few rules than be grammatically "perfect."