Caution: Contents Under Pressure

I cover my ears with my hands and I yell, loud enough so that I can't hear them any more. My teacher took away my headphones earlier today because I wasn't "paying attention." I guarantee you she doesn't know the meaning of that phrase. Not the way I do. 

I know that there are 154 styrofoam tiles that cover the ceiling in our classroom. I know that every day at 10:53, the teacher will sit at her desk and have to raise the chair. I know that my classmates whisper things about me when they think the volume is turned up on my iPod. I know why my chair is the only one in it's row.

I know that hitting things actually makes you feel better.  There are times when I'm in class and I imagine my knuckles crashing into cold metal. It's definite. The results are predictable. The sound is directly proportionate to the force with which I strike. I also know that things are more important than people. Because when I hit things, I get in trouble, but when people hurt me with their words, nothing happens. I guess we have something in common, my teacher and I. We both wish the other one would pay better attention. 

I have more bad days than good ones. I'm not religious, but I believe in Heaven and Hell. Heaven is a quiet room with a closed door and lots of lamps. Hell exists in an alternate dimension and it's located somewhere between my left ear and my right one. 

I know most people are scared of me. I don't blink often enough or look away. No matter how hard I try, I'm always swimming upstream in a crowd. Maybe it's because I want as far away from them as possible. Their voices are too loud. They don't have a plan. They are a funnel of explosives and I am a spark. We all share the blame. When people are born, they should come with a warning label. Caution: Contents Under Pressure. Since they don't, society just brands a few of us as crazy. The problem is, the majority doesn't understand just how flammable they are until it's too late. 

Peer pressure

I stand in front of the mirror, and I can't decide. I don't know who I hate more: them, or myself. My hair is wavy and I pull it straight, wishing myself into a shape that isn't my own. Maybe if I pull hard enough I will become like them. I imagine these roots of my hair reaching all the way into my brain. If I pull hard enough, can I straighten out who I am so that I come out normal? I close my eyes and wish myself into a shape that isn't my own. 

When I open my eyes, the girl in the mirror hasn't changed except for the tears in her eyes that didn't used to be there. I hug myself in the only embrace that seems to understand me and I let the tears splash against my arm. Salty waves crashing on the sand of my sun-kissed skin. I raise my head again to the girl in the mirror. My eyes are beautiful. They are more green when I cry, but when I look at myself, all I can see is sad.

I sink to the floor because I can't stand. The ache fills my rib cage and takes up all the space where my breath is supposed to be. My voice has become an echo that only I can hear. I'm starting to think that princesses were never locked up in castles with dragons. No dungeon could scar me more than these whispers and secrets that snake around my heart and steal myself from me.  

I clench my small fist and just stare at it. My nails bite into my palm, but I don't care. I decide to build my own walls. Like the Egyptians of old, I'll build a coffin that looks like me on the outside while I'm busy dying on the inside. I stand up and look at myself in the mirror. I've changed already. I grab the flatiron. I hate them all, but I hate myself the most. 

Backstage

Come, lay down behind the curtain of my eyelids and dream with me. No, not that side of the stage. I want you to live this nightmare from the inside. You have a part in it, you see. And sitting in the audience doesn't really do living justice.

Welcome to the cavern of truth. Oh, by the way, be careful of the floor. The foundation is a little shaky, you see. It sits on the backs of withered slaves and tired grandmas and you don't want to slip through the cracks. Also, I wouldn't go around cleaning up any old cobwebs. Some of these spiders are centuries old, and unless you're the Terminator, I'd say you don't have much of a chance.

Let me show you the dining hall. I present the proverbial fat cows, but don't smile so big. Not yet. Come closer and look. Their bellies are swollen with worms. Amazing what happens when you swallow lies mixed in with a single grain of truth. Well don't look so repulsed! It certainly isn't the cows' fault and you would haven't known any better off if you were still sitting in the crowd. 

Oh you're shivering. Cold? Follow me. I'll show you the den and you can stand close to the fire. There we go. That's better, right? I just hope you don't mind that smell. When we ran out of wood, we started burning bodies. It's amazing how much the bones look like logs if you don't look too close. Don't try to wipe the soot off your skin now. It's way too late. You enjoyed the fire; that's an experience you can't erase. Well, don't get mad at me for not telling you earlier! You didn't ask. 

Come on. I'll show you the garden. Aren't the flowers beautiful? Oh, wait! I wouldn't smell them if I were you. Nothing would grow here so we had to paint them. Of course it's all organic. Every morning we coat them with the fresh blood of the unwanted. Well, don't look at me like that! Everyone here has a purpose and we are all proud to do our part. Look, if you don't like the flowers, then stop staring at them. 

Come over here and rest by the fountain. Beautiful, isn't it? Shhhh. Listen closely. This water is made of only the finest souls. Young dreams are the purest so we harvest them early. No, no, no you have it all wrong. Don't think of it as stealing. It's more like a wishing well, really. I think you're perspective is just uneducated, but you're welcome to your opinion.

Come back in and I'll show you the baths. See how the walls glisten with steam? We used only the finest ivory to make these murals. Where did we get the ivory? Well, you're starting to ask a lot of questions, aren't you? Go ahead and touch them if you want. They won't bite. Any more. 

A mirror you say? Well, we try not to show our guests that part of the house. Oh, you insist? Very well. But I don't think you're going to like what you see. Remember how I told you that you had a part in this nightmare? Well the truth hurts. Go ahead and look. Few have true vision and, as the saying goes, we needed a fresh pair of eyes. Now, now, don't cry. You'll streak. Each of us had to build this with our sweat and blood, no pun intended. 

Well I'm on my way out, it was nice chatting. What's that? Sure, I have time for one last question. What did I sacrifice for its construction? That should have been your first question. See this hole here in my chest, behind my rib cage? Believe it or not, I used to have a heart.

The Hunt

I must have been drunk. I must have been so far gone on the lows of my sorrows that I didn't see it there, in front of me. My belly ached only for the full feeling of the chase and in hunting that beast I forgot to exist. It consumed me. It did. I foamed at the mouth with a crazy lust and I slept with the barrel loaded, the gun cocked and ready. 

I can't tell you how many times I just closed my eyes and shot into the night, screaming and falling to the ground in a heap when I hit nothing. It crazed me. I left sleep behind in my tent and I left my soul drowning in a river somewhere with a preacher who told me he could wash away my sins. But I got out out of the water before it could save me. 

I grabbed my shotgun and ran into the forest, leaving a trail of wet footprints that blistered the earth as if I were a demon and not a man. I'll always be able to find that river because my own regret is a smell I can trace as good as any bloodhound. 

And I guess that morals must be the pilot light for our eyes because the light went out in mine the day I stopped seeing the world for what it was. Two flat, black discs hovered in my sockets and I saw visions of the beast taunting me, always a stride away from the range of my gun. Once, I shot him point blank in the face but sick laughter echoed back with the crackle of the air and I knew I only shot an illusion. 

My hair grew long and my face became sallow and when I saw my reflection painted in dew drops I titled it, "Jesus, Incomplete" because that's exactly what I looked like. My teeth turned into sulfurous spikes, jagged and broken from incessant grinding. I had only one shot left and I decided to use it on myself, to end the hunt. 

By the time I saw it, I couldn't stop the bullet. This time the beast was so close I could feel his breath on my skin. And as the shot raked through my body, just before my eyes closed in death, I saw his name hanging from his collar. All this time, I was chasing Happiness. And finally when it was too late, I slowed down enough for him to catch me.