Who Said It Had to Hurt?

I’ve always been a crier.  I used to cry easily, but when I hit puberty, I seemed to sprout eternal tears.  I haven’t cried about anything important in six months. 

Yesterday, I cried because I saw someone fall on the stairs.  Not tonight.

There’s something in my chest.  It pushes through my body, but I don’t know what to do with it.  It wants something.  It demands something.  But I don’t know what.  He wanted me to promise I wouldn’t walk anymore.  Call him, he said.  Sure, crazy girl calling sane boy at 2am.  Good idea.  I may be taunting the deep end, but I sure as hell knew embarrassment. 

I see my hands reach for my shoes, then my coat, then the door.  I’m not in control.  Nothing obeys me.  Don’t go outside.  It’s cold.  It’s 2am.  It’s dangerous.

Doesn’t matter.  Doesn’t listen.

I know the winter wind is whipping my cheeks, but it seems so far away.  My ankle twitches, angry at me for pushing it so soon out of the cast.  I’m not pushing it.  My feet are.  I want my bed.  I want to go to sleep like a normal person.  The thing inside me pushes harder, and demands to go faster.  I can’t walk any faster; already I’m limping.  It’s not working.  Halfway across campus and I know it’s not working.  This thing retreats, prodding my pounding heart spitefully before it settles in my lower abdomen, never quite gone.  I’m alone to walk back.

Every shadow has a knife.  Every noise has a gun.  Teenage girls should not be walking on a dark campus at 2am.  I could be hurt.

So?

That’s the wrong attitude.  If a bus hit me, I should be scared, not relieved.  I can’t kill myself.  How overly dramatic.  This isn’t normal, and I know it.  I let myself back into my dorm, my phone sitting quietly on the desk.  I should have taken it.  I shouldn’t have gone out at all.  No one goes out at 2am just a stroll.  I do.

The clock frowns at me.  2:20am.  My little excursion didn’t even waste much time.  I should go to bed.  I should’ve gone to bed hours ago.  This quiet room is wrong.  How is it so quiet in here?  The chair is hard against my back, my coat is making me hot.  I can’t move.  I think I’m waiting. 

What is there to wait for?  Get into bed, go to sleep.  I have an 8am class.  Speech.  I hate that class.  It’s so quiet.  Not inside.

My eyes search the room slowly, looking but not hoping for some answer.  So mundane, so normal, it can’t be.  I don’t feel normal anymore.  The lines on my arm itch.  Why would someone cut themselves?  It’s so dramatic.  Asking for attention.  I am.  But I wanted to feel it.  That’s dumb, I can feel my body.  But I don’t feel the way I used to.  This body isn’t mine. 

The angry lines from my elbow to my wrist mar the white skin.  My poor body.  It didn’t ask for this.  It didn’t ask for me.  I hate this quiet.  I hate it.  I hate it.  I hate it.  Last week I threw a cup at the wall.  It was plastic and bounced back onto the floor.  It was really loud and I’m surprised my floor mates didn’t come in. 

I threw it again.  This time it broke.  I’ve had that cup for so many years.  I couldn’t stop the tears as I stared at the mess.  So childish.  No, not even a child would throw their cup twice in a temper tantrum.  Surprisingly, broken plastic cuts skin better than scissors.  So dramatic.

Tonight there’s nothing left.  I can’t turn off the lights.  The revealing florescent lights enhance the complete absence of movement or noise, but the dark is a playground for my overactive imagination.  Unfortunately, things that go bump in the night aren’t scary anymore.  They’re welcome.  What’s more terrifying is the lack of things that go bump.  Darkness is more crazy than florescent lights. 

This has to be what crazy feels like.  Am I supposed to know if I’m crazy?