#tsd. open

all you do is rage, rage, rage. the neighbors shake their heads at you whenever you get back from another bender or a night at the little jail down at the local station. you scare them off like you have everyone else in your life because if you’ve learned anything, it’s that being alone is easier. being alone hurts less. you lost what you loved most when you were just a kid, you can’t handle that pain again. so you let the town call you names, you let their words wash over you. disgust is better than pity. the disgust you can take. the pity, that burns.

you cannot remember what tempted you so. all you remember is a blinding light then — the fires of hell. your time in heaven is a mystery to you, and not one you’re sure you want to solve. what good is remembering heaven when you’re stuck in hell? still, something in you wondered. you were guided to the gateway by another who claimed to have used it themselves. you saw an opportunity and took it, longing for another life. there is something about these humans that you desire. you want to be them; alas, possession is all you’ll ever have. 

you tell yourself every morning: it wasn’t always like this. there must have been a point in time where you were happy, even if you can barely remember it now. the marriage took everything from you — your heart, mind, and soul. slowly, you’re piecing it all back together in the wake of your divorce. the neighbors tut behind closed doors, calling you poor dear and lamenting woes that haunted you the first months after your partner left. you want to be the person you were before love drowned them and tossed them out to sea. you wade in water up to your waist and search for them. if not you, then who? no one. no one.

you’ve lived in rapture your whole life. rapture’s all your family’s ever known. as much as this town is your home, you know something’s not right with it. your mother used to sit with you on the porch and warn you that something in this town was out to get you and if you weren’t careful, it would. you took her at her hand not just because she was your mother, but because you could feel it too, an innate wrongness. you don’t know how to tell others but you try to warn them. they call you old and paranoid for it but you don’t care, you know the truth.

growing up with everything is a big bore. you’ve always wanted excitement but you were stuck in a metal cage. you were a pretty bird, to be seen and sometimes heard, but never to be let out. the moment you found out how to escape, you did so at every opportunity. and it wasn’t just to daze around with friends at the park and eat pizza at john’s. no, your entrapment had warped you deep down, had turned you into someone with a delight for acidic words and cruel actions. the monster in you wanted to devour, so devour it has. 

you had obligations to god, did you not? and you grew lackadaisical in them and apathetic about everything else, did you not? your apathy started to infect your obligations, that’s all you remember before hell. truly, you do not think you deserved what you received. apathy falls onto anyone whose job lasts eternities. hell wasn’t the place for you, so you escaped upon finding the first gateway in your path. in truth, you hold no ambitions for earth but it is better than suffering and better than laboring so you take it nonetheless. 

crime was never meant to be your calling. you were meant to have done something greater with your life, it’s what your family always wanted for you. but your brother, the black sheep, fell into it so you followed suit. everyone dismayed at your sharp turn away from all that was good and conventional. the truth is: to some extent, stealing thrilled you, but you were tired of it all and you couldn’t keep waiting for your brother. he left alone one night after a fight and never came back. your family breathes easy but you? you’re sick with worry.

did you think yourself greater than god? it was, after all, your hubris that threw you out heaven back first. but you are not a tale of warning, you never learned from your mistakes. instead, you grew bitter. your pride had been wounded, you could tolerate many things but you couldn’t tolerate that. the gateway was a way to show defiance yet again. you wouldn’t live out your days in hell; you knew how to best your punishment, how to best god. this town called rapture is just a speck on a map but it’s enough. for now.