april promised to be warm. warm enough to leave the house in a light coat or a worn-out hoodie without fear of getting sick. and yet, the cold pierced through. its source was hidden somewhere behind the ribs, which the blanket didn't clear. this one coiled like a serpent around the lungs and made the teeth chatter even in a sunlit room. it made hands tremble without reason. i could feel it spreading – a slow, enveloping wave – from the marrow to the skin, until the skin itself felt like someone else’s. it didn’t pay rent for settling; exhausting shit, slowly driving me insane.
and i cut. just a line here and there, a small permission to feel something other than that bone-deep frost, an escape, a hand tethering to something real. the blood was warm for a second, then it cooled too. the trembling never stopped.
i’ve always been good at running. i sprinted until my lungs burned, until my vision blurred, until the world started tilting from lack of oxygen, and i reached the aim. there is no goal anymore – just away, just to be faster than my head. i tried to sleep. wrapped in blankets – two, three, a whole nest of them – but the cold was already inside the core. it didn’t care about wool or cotton. it didn’t care about messages that should have been replied to a week ago. later. always later.
i’ve always been good at talking. i rambled until my throat hurt, until my mouth couldn’t catch up with my mind that created words before my tongue said them. once appearing in public, i suddenly forgot how to talk. words felt too heavy, too sharp, my brain refusing to make sentences. and after that, i forgot how to be anything but bark and bite. the snarl comes easy. when someone knocks, when a voice asks, suddenly concerned, the teeth show before the thought does. i bite the hands that reach. i snap at the light. because the cold has taught me that help is just another kind of wound, and that kindness is only a prelude to leaving.
so i lie there, shivering from the ribs outward, wrapped in everything i own, and nothing owns me back.
it's hard to see a person's demons just by looking at them. it's even harder to acknowledge you saw them too late.
sometimes you get scared of yourself. it seemed like you’re one of billions of the same, a gray mouse in a huge human mass, a grain of sand in the cycle of human problems in which they are absorbed. nobody, an empty place, just like everyone else. then why is there so much overwhelming rage inside?
day after day fly by at the speed of light. groundhog day is gnawing, but no one cares. stress accumulates, things build up into a massive mountain, pressing on your shoulders so that at some point you can't even stand. and inside, it's aching; aching so much that you can no longer keep your fists to yourself.
a hit. weak at first, as if you're being cautious, as if you're afraid to violate some kind of morality, some idiotic social laws that no one cares about a long time ago. another one. more confident, more powerful. and the next second, the roof blows off. it doesn't matter what you punch – the wall, the mirror, a loved one, yourself. anything to keep it quiet. anything but that.
any unpleasant sound, any wrong word, too quick action is a breakdown. the flame ignites in a couple of seconds, when the veil covers your eyes and you are no longer yourself. and at some point it doesn't matter. you just want it to be quieter.
the first victim, broken physically or mentally, makes no sense. you're a beast. a monster who can't control himself. a vile semblance of a man, overflowing with poison, which gushes in search of a way out, and in its absence corrodes the flesh from the inside. the punishment for your weakness is never long in coming. anything to keep it from breaking.
the cycle. a vicious circle that cannot be broken. anger – guilt– pain. fist – word – helpless cry. and no one hears, no one will help because you don't deserve to be saved after ruining the lives of others. thighs are covered in bright red scars, wrists are burned, legs are bruised from trying to beat out this stupidity, this endless anger that has changed your personality. you drink the hole in your chest down and hit a loved one again.
this is the day you stop checking your phone. you delete their number not in anger, but because you’re just… tidying up. it’s the quiet that comes after the last tear you’ll ever cry for them. you’re not fighting the loneliness anymore, not trying to make them come back. you leave humiliation and accept the situation the way it is. it’s like you’ve been carrying a backpack full of stones for miles and finally can throw it away, release yourself from the burden that gnawed inside. there’s a peace in that. no more hoping, no more waiting. just you and still broken but free heart.
there comes a point where “loneliness” isn’t something you feel — it’s what you are. it’s in your bones and once you accept that, a strange power settles over you. you answer to no one. you disappoint no one. your heart is a closed room, and you are the only thing in it. it’s not a temporary state anymore; it’s who you became. and in that, there’s a grim, unshakeable strength. you are the only citizen of your own ruin; you make all the rules and no thing alive can make you suffer more than you can do. people can’t hurt you further, so love is a useless thing for the weak.
it’s choosing to be the floor they walk on. it’s erasing your own wants so completely that the only thing you feel is the hollow space where you used to be. you don’t do it for a thank you. you do it because their need for you — to fix them, to hold them together, to absorb their chaos — is the only proof you have left that you exist. you let yourself be used up, burned down to a stub, and you call it purpose. it’s love turned inside out: not “i want you to be happy,” but “i need you to need me, even if it destroys me.” but despite that it’s the only thing that makes you feel meaningful, useful, alive.
it’s when you hear they lost their job or their new partner left them. you don’t smile, not really. you just feel a slow, heavy warmth spread in your chest, like you’ve finally swallowed a piece of coal from a fire that burned you years ago. it’s not that you’re happy they’re hurting. it’s that you finally have proof. proof that the universe saw what they did to you, and it’s keeping a sin counter. the scales were tipped against you for so long, and now — bloody and grim — they’ve finally settled. you can take a full breath for the first time in years.
obsession doesn't need them to love you back. love gets quiet when it's not returned, but obsession gets louder. it fills up the silence they left with the sound of your own heartbeat, like a drum in an empty church. you build the entire religion around a memory of their smile, a sentence they once said. you polish that one moment until it's the only thing that shines in your dark. you don't want the real person — their bad days, their stupid jokes, the way they'd disappoint you. you want the statue you carved from a glance they gave you years ago. it's a perfect, silent world where they are forever almost-yours, and that almost is more real than any love that ever required them to show up. it’s you, alone, holding a ghost so tight your fingers turn white, because letting go would mean admitting the ghost was never there.
it’s the quiet moment after you’ve thought something so cruel, so dark, that it should scare you. but it doesn’t. it just feels… true. the last thread of “i am a good person” snaps, and instead of falling, you realize you were never held up by it anyway. there’s a terrifying freedom in it. if there’s no good left in you to protect, then there’s nothing to stop you. no voice in your head says “don’t.” sure, love built fences, forcing you to put up with social norms, hold back. realization of your capability, of building your life the way you truly want opens you the wide, empty field after the fence posts have rotted away. you could walk in any direction. no one is coming to save anyone from you — or maybe yourself.
hatred is a better alarm clock than love ever was. love makes you sleepy, comfortable. hatred gets you out of bed. it gives you a reason to brush your teeth, to get dressed, to be better — just so you can be a living, breathing reminder to how wrong they were about you. and that energy, that dark, buzzing fire in your chest that makes your body tremble from resentment? you pour it into something real. you take the raw, ugly mess they made of your heart and you turn it into a weapon, or a warning, or a witness. your pain becomes your most honest driving force, making you better than those who shattered your soul. when you see the results of your hard work, when you look at them down and notice how little their achievements are, you can’t ignore satisfaction that coursing in your blood for making them shut up for once.
your emotional luggage isn’t something you carry like a burden, instead, something you live inside of. your anxiety, your triggers, your sharp edges — they aren’t flaws to fix; they’re your oldest friends. they’re the only parts of you that have never lied, never left, never promised you a happiness you couldn’t have. to let someone love you would mean asking them to love this too — this cracked foundation — and that feels like a betrayal of the only truth you have. you can’t betray your most truthful companions that are more real and reliable than any external affection could ever be. in a world of pretty lies, that honest ruin feels more like home than love ever could make you feel.
how am i supposed to find distraction when nothing seems right? how am i supposed to stop shaking when all i hear is hardly pounding heart, thoughts swirling in my head? how am i supposed to put the end to it when i can only clench my jaw so hard teeth are threatening to break, dig nails into palms and breathe through it? cause i can’t fall apart now, it’s not the right time, but i wonder what will happen in a while.
it seems as if everything is gradually piling up, constantly, without giving a break. i’ll survive anything, i know that. i can shout to the whole world that i won't give up if i really see the need to fight for something. for material things, for my future, for my beliefs, for my rightness, for my freedom. but maybe not for people.
i have a disgusting personality, which i can let show to the fullest when i start to lose control. closed ones, despite the fact that their number is scanty, suffer from my actions suddenly and instantly, as if from a radioactive wave. all because of me being a possessive piece of shit with all kinds of aggression mixed together.
i get angry, i insult, i say things that i later regret, just to prove my case and put the person in their place. cause i also sacrifice a lot so that the harmonious picture familiar to society comes together from puzzles into a single picture. surprise, i’m hurt too, and i want to shout about it to acquaintances, to every blade of grass. i want to spit poison so that everyone knows that it cuts deep, that i’ve been holding on to a barely visible thread for the last year in constant stress. and sometimes, after all, some frankly brazen careless action finishes me off.
but i have to turn on my brain, keep the shit to myself, and not upset them even more. because i care too, i know how painful it is when people fuck about you left and right about how bad you are. trust me, i remember shaking when this happened again at 14, 16, 18 again and again, breaking from the inside. hence, i don't have time or energy to deal with this shit. it's easier to shut it down, to close eyes and move on. i am not one of those who prefer to discuss. if it were up to me, i wouldn't open my mouth at all.
i was once told that i am impossible to bear. and maybe that someone was right.
and here we go again. i hear sobbing on the phone; resentment, eternal resentment. it's like we haven't discussed this a thousand times. as if i could change something, remove exhausting things from my life and always be cheerful and active. but it's hard for me too, fucking unbearably painful, and i'm coping with it in my own ways. i just have to get over it, disappear for a couple of days. it'll pass, right? it's better than enduring my breakdowns, the discontent that spills out on my loved ones. i'm drowning in my acquaintances, in their conversations, jokes, as if it's not gnawing inside. like i don't want to faint from exhaustion right here and now. my dream and the people around me are too important to me to vent and poison their lives with my constant discontent. i shut myself off when i feel that my bad temper is getting the better of me. i don't have the strength to solve interpersonal conflicts that i can unwittingly provoke against this background. is it really that hard to understand? just once? why you deliberately tear me apart from the inside even more? i can barely get out without it.
eating’s for the strong, sleep’s for the weak - superheaven
there's something about the aching fatigue, the ailing limbs, the completely empty, heavy head, until you can't force a bite into your mouth, until feel sick to your stomach, and the urge to vomit organs becomes tangible.
last night i was haunted by auditory hallucinations: sharp screams, sobs, words, sounds so real that they were confusing. probably need to sleep more, or my brain is trying to process things somehow. it's scary, feels like i’m slowly going insane.
the trust was a creation which I had wrought, gradually, painfully, as a nest of glass, of gossamer. it made its nest in the cavity of my ribs. a small nervous bird.
then the storm. a quarrel, small in its genital, huge in its devastation. it had started with a firebrand of fury, blazing and pure, but the atmosphere within me soon changed. the anger was a fire, clean and too bottled up, directed at everything including myself, and left the heavy cold ash of guilt. it was a compound, that fucking guilt, coarse and gritty. it was a part of everything, gnashing at the seams of my thoughts, eating away at the core.
and then she told her friends.
that’s what friends are for, isn’t it? to hold your confessions. to share the burden. a sacred chorus of complaint to validate your pain. i know the script, i have heard it all my life.
but i looked at my own hands, and they were empty. my tongue, a stone. because i would never tell. i would never expose a person like that, flay them open for the scrutiny of a casual audience. to me, it is a kind of violence.
i have been on that stage, you see. under those lights. at the slightest fuck-up, the merest misstep, the curtain would rise. and a whole company of acquaintances, their faces once familiar, would become a jury. the whispers there was a current of it and drew me along. the collective, silent hate — or what seemed to be it, an indignant pity — was a pressure that made me desire to undo it. to just dissolve into the air. it is a particular kind of terror. to be so thoroughly seen and so completely despised.
that's why i bite.
my silence is not nobility, not a higher virtue. a plain baring of teeth. a preemptive strike against a pain i know too well. i hold the hurt close, let it fester in the dark of me, because that is a cleaner wound, a private bruise. it is better to be the one who is bitten in the quiet of your own soul than to be the one thrown to the pack.
so i bite my tongue. i bite back the words. i only make it sure that the scar is mine, and mine alone. just so it doesn't hurt.
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