I lie under my covers of steel enveloping me to the bed beneath me like a murderer being restrained to a table getting ready for lethal injection; my cold body limp on the mattress beneath me. The ceiling fan clicks rhythmically. Click. Click. Click. Swaying and blowing cold air in my face. It’s so calm but my house feels like it’s collapsing. The rotten wood creaks and shakes smelling like wet pine. The holes in my floor getting bigger slowly absorbing the air around it like a void. The walls swaying with the fan like trees in the wind circling around like some sort of funhouse. I want out but my racing heart tells me to stay. The windows broken from people coming in and going out. They don’t come around anymore, they left me here. Their sad faces used to stare into my eyes and they always gave up.

The room shakes more aggressively the more I think. I roll out of my bed. I stumble into the hallway swaying into the white door frame and tripping into the middle of the hallway staring at the floor. The floor like a void beneath my bare feet. I stop. My arms itch with those wires hanging out dangling like metal rings concealing the muscles and marrow beneath my skin. The blue and yellow wires sewed into my arm. The blue and yellow memories that surround it, that caused it. I itch and itch so it feels better but the pain just gets worse. The wires dropped to floor releasing my arm from the strain while the red drips to the floor like a dam exploding from loss of restraint. The hallway turning with the blue and yellow absorbing my vision like television static. The bright spots that expand and move as they make faces at me. They mock me and appear in front of me like ghosts. Behind them the kitchen greets me as I collapse upon the cold hardwood floor. I endeavor to stand back up. The aroma of burning metal surround me. The pale cabinets creaking in the midst of silence I look up and walk toward them with their endless blank stare. I watch hypnotized by their endless white.

The crooked drawers and their squeaking hinges open in front of me. They reveal the shiny orange cups with their dirty white lids. They shake as I reach out and my mind flashes. The people who appeared in front of me and they sat there in space with their thousand-yard stares.Their faces greet me in disappointment they float in front of reality in a window of memories. I drop the cups, the rattle echos into the floor with the dark holes surrounding them. They sink into the floor, forgotten.

The lights flicker and flare revealing reality once again. I can’t stand this place, I want out of this house but I don’t know how to escape. I look down at my lonely feet with their deep red marks that lost their wires. My hands shaking as always. The loud knocking on the door comes again as it did yesterday and the day before that. That knock that comes and goes, but I’ll never let them in, not into my house. If they see inside they might leave like the rest. But I want help. The knocking continues. Do they really care? The walls move toward me, wood creaking and bending. My heart racing as I’m surrounded by indecision. They stand there on the other side staring at me through the window. Their pale face looking like a moon in the sky. “Help,” I mouth. The mumble of their voice leaks into my house. Their grey eyes stare at me flickering like a candle. How can they be worried? I don’t want them to, I want to be left alone not in someone else’s mind, not in their house. But they care? Is that even possible? As if there’s anything they can do. The clouds of dust showing with the light crawling in through the windows like pale spiders running down the walls and surrounding everything. The creaking of the tile alarmed as I moved toward the door. Knock. Knock. Knock. “Go away,” I bark. They can’t hear me. Their pale face is still with their black silky hair blowing in the wind.

What’s their problem? They’re wasting their time. They stand there and knock but I keep my door locked. The house becomes nothing but the constant echos of beating on a door. I can’t keep doing this forever. I give in. I walk to the door slowly and look into the void that is the keyhole of the door knob. My hands shaking uncontrollably as always. Gripping the lock slowly, I take a deep breath. The first lock clicks. Regrets run through the house like children running from gunfire. The door unlocks followed by my slow turn of the doorknob. The light blinds me until the person slowly becomes visible. They show me out of the house that seems to grab me with it’s cold hands but I push through walking into the yard. I’m out. Why didn’t I let them in earlier? Why didn’t I just leave?  The chirping of birds and warm sun greets me with a feeling of tranquility. They helped me and I was selfish. I don’t deserve this. They talk but nothing gets through to me. I’m too distracted by the birds. Talking and rambling. The birds still dance in the sunlight. Eventually, they leave. The wind with it’s final blow turned me around back to the face of the gray house. The clouds close around the sun making everything go dark. I reach for the doorknob and look into the dim windows. My hand on the cold brass knob, I look back at the world my house keeps me from and think: “It’s my job to stay happy: away from my house; away from my head”.