I couldn’t take it anymore—the thoughts, the voices, the pain. A long, agonizing cry escaped from me. I collapsed onto the bed already stained with droplets of blood. “This world is so cruel…” I spat out into the cold, silent darkness of my room as images of death and unfairness bombarded my head. The thorny vines wrapped neatly around heart tightened themselves even more. I shut my eyes tightly and pulled my arms up against my chest to counter the pain. I forced my finger to run along the edge of the razor. Tears spilled beneath my dark eyes. “I'm so pathetic right now. I just wanted the world to turn with me“, My thoughts screamed. I felt myself slip into depression more. I knew that in reality, I didn’t want to die. Instead, I wanted to be saved.

The comfort I craved for wasn’t there to save me as usual. I drowned in my own stress and frustration. Life isn’t fair. But no one ever straight out told me that. So I learned it the hard way—it’s a world full of pain and pride. I stared out into the darkness of the world. Through windows you’re suppose to see a brighter future, but through the window I was staring out at I only saw more physical and mental torture. Broken and shattered, I slumped slowly out of bed and into the bathroom.

What I saw in the mirror shocked and hurt me. A pale, weak, pitiful reflection called out to me. I pressed my fingers across the bottom of my inflamed eyes and the scar left from a cut not long ago. I’ve been crying for hours everyday. Sleep isn’t a possibility out of reality anymore. The demented screams and cries of torment would lead me to choke and vomit until I could breathe again. I felt like an ad showing what girls see when they have bulimia. Instead, I was the only one who saw who I truly was inside, while others just see an impostor I put on to stop people from thinking I have problems. Yes, I’m one of those people who lie in bed at night and cry because being different hurts, and then in the morning, everyday at school, up goes my mask and my plastic smile for the whole world to see. It’s the common mask that grins and lies, but also helps hide the shades of our eyes.

I blew my nose and crawled back into my room. I started crying again but I told myself to stop. In a secluded place like my house, there was no use to cry when no one was there to comfort or to see the suffering I go through. But my heart wasn’t cooperating. It smashed against my rib cage, trying to get out. My efforts to counter the impacts were no use. I let my white teddy bear fall to the floor and grabbed knife. When words and thoughts just aren’t enough, fight pain with pain.

“It’s down the road, not across the street” I muttered to remind myself. I stared hard into the darkness before me. The soft glow of the laptop still on my desk crept up to my face and turned my head. The last words he had said to me still linger in AIM. Tears spilled down my cheeks and the knife sliced through like bread. It once seemed that there was no hope or good in this world to me. But then I met one person who finally understood me and gave me the comfort I never gotten from anyone. He changed the light bulb of the world I was looking into and introduced me to the new feeling of having a close friend, even though love tends to be harder to maintain than friendship. Being someone who was always neglected and ignored was repressed by this new opportunity to a better outlook on life. But today was the day where it had to end.

I kept telling myself that there was a way—a chance for things to start over. I pushed myself into deeper denial. “How could I have let this happened?” Like thunder over a storm of cries, the deafening voice of anger exploded in my ears. “You are nothing but a brat. The helpless kid who can’t do anything without him around. The only person you rely on, that boy, has betrayed you.” I knew the voice was right. I have nothing left. I lost everything I would possibly die for. “Lost? What a funny self-pitying thought. You didn’t lose anything. Didn’t you have nothing from the very beginning? From the very beginning, nothing belonged to you. No one loves you. You’re relationship was only superficial.”

I took a last stab at myself. I wanted to look exactly how I felt. Scars and deep cuts would cover my face. Blood would run from my eyes like streams of gory. I flopped back onto bed, deep in this tranquilizing thought. The day was coming to an end, but I didn’t feel like doing homework anymore. Dazed, I smiled at myself weakly. It seemed so ironic to think about homework at this time when all I wanted to do was die. The purpose of my life is gone. The sun I go to school with is gone. I frowned at myself.
To sulk around and sigh for several months, waiting for this pain to vanish, was my last resort. I ran outside onto the street with the key to peace in my hand. Suddenly the cold air made me nauseous. Before I knew it, the sky hit the Earth and the world closed to an end. But after I knew it, I was still alive. Yes, alive and trapped. Wires and needles came into my reality. I wanted to panic and rip all of them out. Nevertheless I was afraid of dying. My real plan wasn’t to die; sometimes you need to run away just so you can see who will follow.

The doctor came in. A tall, white-haired man who seemed to be hurried and busied by other patients he had. Standing next to the bed, he and his clipboard made it seem like I was about to be interrogated. “Feeling better?” he asked casually. My forehead creased with anger knowing that he didn’t really care, but that it was just his job to ask that. “Sure…” I replied back with a sullen whisper. He did interrogate me, but I was not thrown too many personal questions for this “talk” to be considered intense. In the end however, like all the counselors and teachers I’ve talked to, he made me promise not to try and hurt myself ever again. And like all the counselors and teachers I’ve talked to, I’ve just told them “Okay.” I’ll fake all the smiles, if it stops all the questions.

Now still broken and bent, I can’t ever imagine mending myself again. You tell me to keep living because I’m still young. You tell me that there’s so much more to experience in life than I know right now. But I’m running through Hell right now, and your telling me that it’s best to just keep on going. Reality is like a knife. It will cut you; never too deep, and never enough to die. But enough to make you feel the pain and scream inside. Maybe one day this would all come to end. Not with a bang, but instead a whimper. As I lay here wondering about this future, the world still turns without me. Here goes me and my life on a new journey. I’m smiling, laughing…but still broken.