I feel my stomach churn as I try to keep that Little Boy in my Stomach calm.
“You promised me you wouldn’t do this!” He yells to me as I loop the belt around the lowest closer rung for the first time. I’m wearing my winter coat even though it’s still Spring. I’m wearing the same too-tight jeans I always wore to school.
I’m wearing the same look I’ve had on my face since I was a kid. One that only gets interrupted by company. A wear a lonliness no company has ever swept away.
What am I feeling? Guilt? Shame? Anger? Sadness? Regret? It’s probably a mixture of them all.
“That was a long time ago. I broke a lot of promises to you since then. I was a lot younger then. A lot like you.” I counter, all too casual as a put a sock in the loop where my neck will be cradled; I was trying to make my hanging more comfortable.
“A promise doesn’t go away just because you made it when you were little!” He yells. My stomach doesn’t just churn. Now it’s upside down. He’s right, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because as soon as my stomach turns I’m already letting my body go slack, leaning forward into the makeshift gallows.
I’m too light to do any real damage, but it doesn’t change that I’m getting significantly less oxygen to my brain. That the Little Boy in my Stomach can hardly breath. While I wait for my efforts to pay off, the Little Boy in my Stomach pleads again.
“Please don’t. Think about your Mom finding you like this. In the closet after school, strung by a belt she bought you.” I listen, but only after I tell him to shut up.
The Little Boy in my Stomach doesn’t talk for a long time after that. He’s mad at me. I would be too, for some of things I’ve done. If I had to watch someone be anything like me, I’d grow to resent them no matter how kind I was.
I do a lot with myself between then and the next time. I break up with my first girlfriend because I’m scared. I cry because my sister said I’m just like my Dad. I think about my childhood.
I think about getting so mad I’d get nose bleeds. So sad I would wish to never be born and truly mean it.
I think about being little and confused why someone my age would want me to touch them there. I think about telling my Dad in the dark years later, and him telling me it was a nightmare.
And then I think about High School. About College.
I think about the days when it was just me and the Little Boy in my Stomach. About yelling slurs for attention in school. About making terrible humorless jokes so I could fit in with the group that fit nowhere. I think about deprived thoughts born from someone who just wanted a hug.
I think about how sad it is that I don’t know him anymore. About how mean I’ve been to everyone since he cut me out.
Without the Little Boy, I don’t feel much. Emotions are fleeting things. I only catch the echos. Until they all catch up with me. The last time I remember hearing from him was graduating College before High School.
“You’re doing what you always wanted, keep going!” He came back to remind me I was allowed to live, allowed to be better, but I ignored him.
I left home under the guise of chasing my dream. The Little Boy could only watch while I packed my bags. While I swore an oath to protect my Country, while I pretended like this is what we wanted.
The echos I’d been hearing, emotions I thought were bouncing off the walls, were buried beneath a ton of bricks. When I left home, all those bricks crumbled to dust. It was just me and my unchecked feelings.
Guilt. Shame. Anger. Sadness. Regret.
In time they wore me down. In time I was back in my closet. A different closet halfway across the country. One with a stronger belt, a stronger rack, and a heavier soul.
I lower myself again. Again, the world dimms. Again I hallucinate.
“Don’t, please!” A familiar voice calls to me. It’s more clear than ever. It tells me again that my Mom will find me like this. It shows me so clearly that when I am in denial of everything.
I text my sister. I tell her that I tried. This is the first time I tell anyone about how I feel. The first time anyone knows I wanted to stop living. I call my mom from the ER after my First Sargeant tells me I’ll be going to a mental hospital.
The Little Boy is Silent.
I only write about all of this today because for the first time since then, the Little Boy talked to me.
“You don’t have to quit.” He looked at me with the same compassion and care I used to look at people with. The same innocence I had before the world got ahold of me.
“Please don’t quit, if only for the sake that I live here, too!” I have to laugh. All this time I hadn’t even considered there was someone else here!
I wasn’t alone at all.