Express for Me

I don’t know how long I’ve been climbing but my hands and feet are cramping and my finger nails are cracked and bleeding from the clutching the rock formations so tightly. I have cuts and bruises all over my body from my clumsy attempts at making progress. Nothing anchors me to the side of this mountain except my sheer determination and physical effort that has sweat dripping down my brow. My feet and ankles throb painfully from the awkward angles I hold them in to keep my body upright as I try not to look down.

It’s difficult to ignore the black void beneath me that acts like a dense fog that threatens to swallow me whole. Unable to help myself I spare a quick glance down below me and I am reminded again how devastatingly final the end of my existence would be if I fall. The darkness beneath me is not natural or normal, it’s just nothingness incarnate. It’s cold and silent, making absolutely no noise as it moves and it’s impossible to make out any visible shapes in the black fog-like substance as it continues to rise closer. I can’t see the bottom of the mountain so I don’t know how high I currently am but I feel the weight of the danger I know is there.

It causes my heart to pound with panic as I force myself to keep moving and clutch the next ridge with my bloody fingers and pull myself up even further.

 I know there’s a ledge coming up big enough to fit my body so I can rest. My limbs are shaking from the constant strain of my muscles because although I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been trying to reach the top of this god forsaken mountain I know it feels never ending and I am becoming too weak to continue at this rate. Beneath me may be a void but way above me I can see a warm glow at the top of this mountain that is just enough to illuminate my path upwards. I don’t know what’s up there but I know it’s better than falling into the unsettling darkness below me.

Only two more moves before I reach the ledge where I think I can take a minute to rest and I grunt with exertion as I dig my bare feet into the side of the rock as leverage in order to jump as far up as I can. My right hand slips a little as I grab a jagged piece of rock and I swing sideways as a result, my feet dangling before I use my left hand to steady myself and bring my feet back against the side of the mountain. I exhale one more time, feeling more sweat trickle down the back of my neck before I reach for the ledge with one hand, having successfully jumped high enough that I can now make a move to pull my body onto the only potential resting area I’ve ever seen. When I manage to drag my upper body onto the ledge I hold in a sob of relief before I pull my legs up and roll onto my back so I’m looking at the top of the mountain where my only source of light is emitting from. I can feel the loose stones and solid rock digging into my back and my eyelids are instantly heavy, threatening to close with exhaustion. But I know I can’t fall asleep because the void will catch up to me if I do. As I catch my breathe, I notice the warm golden light above me at the top where I can’t see suddenly expanding, almost vibrating as I stare up at it in confusion. I haven’t seen it move before, unlike the darkness. It spreads wide enough from the side of the mountain and hovers high above me so that I start to see moving images and shapes, ones that are familiar to me.

It looks like a home movie I haven’t seen before, with all my loved ones seemingly gathered together, chatting happily with one another. I see my dad moving about in a kitchen, preparing what I assume is a fancy dinner of some kind and laughing at some remark my brother made.

I see my sister and her husband, sipping cocktails on the couch, their legs stretched out and overlapping each other in front of them while they cuddle the family dogs.

I see my mom fussing and absolutely beaming at her baby grandson and my nephew in her arms, just so obviously happy and enthralled with his adorable chubby cheeks. She’s chatting with his mom, who also is exuding pure happiness, sneaking glances and sharing smiles with her husband, who is also my brother and is looking just so proud to be a father.

My own husband sits next to my mom, asking endless questions about baby development with unfiltered interest and curiosity. Every once in a while he stops to look around, his brow furrowed in concern as he seemingly looks for something he can’t see or find before he goes back to chatting with my family, cracking jokes and making people smile and laugh.

My heart squeezes and I feel a longing so powerful it brings tears to my eyes.

That’s when I notice the woman that materializes looking over from the top of the Mountain peering down at me with a frown and her curly light coppery hair falling down the sides of her face. A face I very much recognize because it’s my own. I look at my own blue eyes that aren’t brimmed with exhaustion and the clean healthy state of her body as she stares down at me. Her eyes express such sadness and conflict I want I look away but I can’t. My mouth opens in a gasp of surprise when she speaks in my voice. It’s quiet but carries clearly despite the distance between us and feels like a caress against my ear when she whispers

“It would be easier you know”

I don’t need her to elaborate to know what she means. I swallow the lump in my throat as I reluctantly consider her words.

I’m tired. I’m so tired of climbing and no matter how hard I try to get to the top, to reach my family and husband it seems only further away. Like those nightmare and horror movie scenes when the hallway keeps getting longer and longer as you walk down it.

Tears gather in my eyes clouding my vision as I whisper back, my voice cracking with emotion.

“But it’s not what I want”

The woman that looks like me pauses, looking almost pained before she replies in a voice that conveys a little exhale of relief  “Then I guess you better keep moving” her gaze shifts from my face to behind me and off to the side.  I recognize the implication immediately.

The darkness is coming for me and if I don’t keep climbing it will consume me.

I fight back another sob and I sit up, feeling all of the aches and pains in my hands, feet and back. Silent tears stream down my face as I come to a standing position. I refuse to look at the progress the dark fog has made since I’ve been resting and focus above the women’s head where the glowing mist continues to flash images of a happy get together of everyone I care about.

So I wipe my bloody hands on my shirt to maintain better friction and grip the side of the mountain once more.

The woman staring down at me with my face smiles sadly before whispering her parting words

“I hope you have enough strength left in you”

Then she becomes one with the golden mist and dematerializes. The home video of my family also dissipates and the overall faint glow at the top of the mountain is the only light remaining once more.

I’m alone again staring up at what I know is supposed to be my destination as I start to feel a biting cold pressing on the air around me, giving me goosebumps. It’s coming from the void like darkness that I notice is almost reaching the top of the ledge I’m standing on.

So I take a deep breath in and hold it for a second before exhaling. Then I do what I’ve always done, which is to continue climbing. I push through my pain and exhaustion in my efforts to keep going because I will get to the top of this fucking mountain before the darkness gets me.

I sit in the dark and I wait.

I can feel the carpet under my legs that I have tucked under me as I make myself as small as possible to fit in the confines of the lightless closet in my room.

As always I had to move a box of books out of the way to fit in the space and push clothes to the side before settling in and staring into the black space ahead.

I clutch my Winnie the Pooh blanket around my shoulders feeling the soft material between my fingers. I got it from Disney world because I am not an underprivileged child. I have toys, I have my own room and never go hungry. I have a whole family including siblings and a mother who cares and loves with all her being.

But I still sit in the dark and I wait

Because what i feel overwhelms me and it hurts and I don’t know how to stop it

I tell myself there’s no reason to be this way. I have what I need, more than what I need, more than most kids can say.

I force myself to stay still in the dark stuffed in the corner of my closet even though it feels too tight and the fabric from my hanging clothes continues to tickle my face. The space feels like it’s pressing on my body trying to make me smaller than I’m already trying to make myself.  small spaces have always made  me uncomfortable and its hard to breathe

But I sit in the dark and I wait

I wait for someone to notice I’m not where I normally am, that I’m not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

And just like every time before I wait until the tightness in my chest and my breathing becomes too laboured to give in and come out of the closet once more.  

I leave and go where I’m supposed to be, do what I’m supposed to do. My sister asked me to make her a snack so I did. My dad sips his drink inside his home office, working on his computer. My brother plays a video game in the basement.  My mom works on getting dinner started.

All the while the tightness in my chest doesn’t ebb, but only continues to push down on me as I realize again nobody noticed

I pushed aside my photo frames of my friends and reached over top the worn out paper backs to close my hand around the one thing I keep coming back to. The little orange prescription bottle with my name on it. It mocks me, with it's mini easily swallowable contents and it's description. "For pain" it says, as if it's that simple. I know for a fact it only covers the physical stuff and really what use is that when it comes to real pain. Sure it can make a headache go away or make your leg stop throbbing or whatever but it doesn't really fix pain. I believe pain is both mental and physical. what's to say that it isn't possible for their to be a disconnect in there somewhere. That's what it feels like to have depression, to feel pain as if it's coming from all over your body, but there is no physical explanation. It's like if you think and know you are still in pain, you are still going to feel it. And that's the thing about medicine and pills. It only works if you believe it will and the only way to believe it works is to take others word for it. What good is that to you when the only person that could really know whether it would work is you.

You see the cycling that's going on here? Because this is my life whether I like it or not. One big contemplation about whether or not to trust myself or people or both. And there is a right answer, even if I'm not quite sure of the question.

So what I did next was what I always did. I tugged on the child proof lid and let 1 tiny white pill fall in the palm of my hand. And just like always I swiftly tossed it into my mouth and swallowed without water or hesitation. To the answer the question I'm sure is swimming around in your minds somewhere, no . I'm not injured and do not have any physical symptoms that would require me to take it. The little white temptations are left over from when I got my wisdom teeth removed about 6 months ago. I was told then, that they might make me giggly and are a little stronger than Tylenol 3, which I had to stop taking because my I fainted every time I stood up. My body is strange sanctuary, abnormal. And i know people faint all the time but what i think is the strange about my particular body is my brain. I actually ENJOYED fainting every time i stood up or got out of bed. Its not to say it was the attention I got for it, because of course my mother always made a fus and every single time she got a little but closer to sleeping on my bedroom floor. It was simplicity of it, of the fall, the unexpected, the piece of mind. And when I say piece of mind i do mean it. The only time you’re brain ever really shuts down is in times of bodily failure, when it needs to give in to something else more vital in order to attempt to fix the problem. The most obvious case of this would be the reach of death, when you don’t wake up after your brain shuts down, but fainting is close enough. You can’t have everything, especially if you are living.

Now i suppose you’re wondering why this is at all important, and the answer is, it isn’t. Not really.

Everyone creates their own sense of importance, so in reality it's all for you to decide.

As i was saying I took the pill and also just like always, nothing happens. Ever since I no longer needed them for pain, they stopped working. And I mean the gigglyness, the good mood, the numbing body feeling, all of it, just doesn’t come. I DONT FEEL IT. A logical answer here would be because my body doesn’t need it, that nothing hurts so I can’t tell the difference. But the mood? Why can’t that come back to me. Thats the reason i take them, thats the reason why everyone takes them. Nobody enjoys pain, it makes them miserable, hence the term. So we take pills to feel better and now I’m wondering if there is such a thing as real medicine. I mean, maybe everything we know about biology is a hoax, all mental, all imagined, all pointless. Cancer? People believe in their own bad luck, while the scanners are really just different shapes because those people have a different shape of brain or are a different species of human. But how do we react to something different from average? They are sick! So what do those people do? Die from sickness. As wrong as these theories might sound and most definetely are, I guess i'll never really know. Not until the last day I faint and my brain shuts off for good.

Ah yes, real question time. Why do I still take them? Hope? Suicidal thoughts maybe? The answer is none of the above. Its curiosity. Have I changed my perspective yet enough to be hopeful again? Because if I go with my crackpot theory as follows: all symptoms of humanity and biology only come from the brain and thought processing, then maybe one day, they will work again. If I’m able to change my brain, then maybe I won’t need the pill to feel the effect.

Who am I kidding?

See I don't think that I actually needed those pills to feel happy, and that is merely because I don’t really feel that way anymore. Not that I won’t have a decent day, i'll smile at others, hand in my homework on time, laugh with my friends at dinner. Its when I come home alone that I really start to realize there is something wrong with me, that there is always something wrong with me. I know every young adult or teen feels this way, I know my perspective isn’t abnormal or freaky, but the thing is to me, it is hard to deal with. I honestly hate when people compare me to others in society because I don’t care about their problems, I care about dealing with my own.

So that was it, I felt nothing as I went back and lied face down on my bed, the familiar soft covers sprawled around me. I sighed, thinking if I could just feel enough happiness to get through the rest of this day, then I could do it for the rest of my life.

So what I did next I thought about for a long time after. If I was going to feel any happiness at all, it wasn’t going to come from a bottle. So I took a deep breathe and shot up from my bed to grab the stupid prescription bottle. I knocked over my picture frames in the process, shattering a picture I took with my best friend at the end of my first year in college. I firmly grasped the bottle in my hand before whipping it with all the force i could muster at my thin glass window. It smashed through the window with unexpected supernatural force and fell quickly to the ground. I ran to the window to see the bottle cracked open with all its contents spread over my backyard. I heard the shouts before I saw my parents. But I only smiled at them, because the window broken before me really showed me how much control I have over temptation and my perspective.