I just didn’t want to keep trying.
I really didn’t want to.
There was this horrible, horrible pit before me.
It showed up in the basement of my father’s house about when I moved back in here. It’s right next to the black metal gun safe. It’s just the right size for me. A perfect circle in the concrete that drops into a dark hole.
I’d been staring at that hole, every now and then sticking my hand in. Despite how dark it is, despite being in a basement where water coagulates at the spot where ground used to be in that hallway like concrete bomb shelter of a room, it was so warm as soon as I passed the threshold. Inviting.
A little part of my leaves whenever I stick my hand down that hole.
I know it’s wrong to jump and lose myself to it. I know it’s wrong to leave everyone behind. I know it won’t fix anything. But maybe sometimes I don’t wanna fix anything. Maybe I just wanna stop it all from reaching me. Maybe I want to open the wound so wide it can’t shut anymore, and I sink into it never to be seen again.
It’s just so inviting. A warm darkness where nothing can follow me. I don’t want to be followed. I don’t want to follow anyone. I just want to sink.
All I can really think about is my bills. How my life has been reduced to chasing money instead of happiness or dreams. How I get a check, and the same day it’s all gone but what I need for food.
The numbers game I’m forced to play makes me a loser every time.
Sure I have support, sure people love me, but do I love myself? Am I happy?
I’m scared, equally of the hole as I am of everything outside of it. The world is too big. I want the world to be small. I want the world to be quiet. Just for a day.
A day is never enough for me. I have such a hard time finding joy, such a hard time appreciating that joy which finds me. So I really want more than a day. A year, maybe. Just until I get tired of it. Just until I realized things weren’t so bad before the world was small and quiet. Just until this hole comes back.
That day I want to be a year won’t seem to come. I never get sleep anymore, all my time is spent dreaming of that day that I want to be a year.
I take my first small step towards the hole, my foot hangs over dangerously. A cup about to spill over a table’s edge, held only by luck.
A second step. A second foot over the lip. This time held back by sadness. Held back by the art that’s inspired me. Held back by regurgitation of a few pleasant memories.
I didn’t hear him walk up behind me. I didn’t know he was home from work.
My father put his hand on my shoulder. I turn to see the look in his eyes, the disappointment. I’ve seen it before. It’s not the first time I’ve almost dropped into the hole.
He held me while I cried, releasing my pain into his shirt collar, instead of that deep dark hole.