Twenty One Pilots Shorts

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SELF HARM AND SUICIDE.

This is what I imagine this song would be like as an actual situation — what its most dire interpretation feels like to me.

It’s 3am, I’m laying on my bed, I’m alone and the lamp in the ceiling is blinding me.

I can’t turn the light off, because then there will be nothing keeping my thoughts from spiralling down an even darker path.

There’s a knife in my drawer, hidden away, but my arm itches for it like a drug, my scars asking for friends.

I don’t want to fall to that trap again, I know in the morning I’ll regret picking up that knife, when the ghosts have all gone, and I face the reality that I harmed myself again, even though I promised over and over that I’ll never. To my mum, to my friends. But they will find out eventually, and I’ll feel guilty for making them worry again, and I’ll end up laying here like always, torn. My guilt for feeling empty is just as painful as the emptiness itself. Like the question of the chicken and egg, I don’t know which came first really.

There’s a heaviness in my chest so dense and dark I can hardly breathe. It isn’t connected to anything real, but it finds my worries — my mum’s expectations, my grades, my perfectionism, my friends’ unmet needs — and uses them as a weapon against me.

When the sun is out, at least I can fight it.

That’s why I keep the lights on.

I went through so much effort so that mum wouldn’t know I’m still awake: I waited till she was asleep to turn the lights back on, I filled the gap between the door and the floor with a t-shirt.

This is nothing new. It’s not the first time I felt like dying, that I felt like I was living a lie by simply… living.

I dig and dig in my brain, wishing to find a reason for this sadness, but there is nothing. It’s just there, swallowing me up whole.

I don’t even have any more tears to cry, I’m so dehydrated my throat hurts.

I want to be better for them, I want to pretend everything is fine, that I can sleep at night, that I can go through my day without wanting to run to the toilet and cry every two hours.

Because nothing I do is good enough.

I am not good enough.

I’ve been falling apart for so long, I don’t remember what it felt like to be whole. I can’t remember what I look like without bags under my eyes from crying myself to sleep.

But I can’t let myself fall away completely. I can’t shut off, I can’t give up. I have to hold on for their sake.

My life isn’t just mine, it’s not my decision to make.

Even though I wish it was.

I look at my phone again: 3:07am, and I feel a clump forming in my throat, the tears welling up, defying all laws of conservation of energy.

How can time go any slower?

I just wish it was over.

Then the phone rings.

“Hey, I know you’ve had a rough week, and you haven’t answered my texts all evening, so I just wanted to check up on you. What’s up?”

A note to readers who feel like this:

I love you, and I promise it gets better.

Remember there are people in your life who are there for you. They might be too wrapped up in their own shit, to call at 3am, but they will do everything they can to pull you out of your pit.

Find those people who will force you to pull yourself out (sometimes by propping you up), those who don’t let you make excuses, that love you unconditionally, and tell you when they can’t pull you up cause they’re drained (but they’ll sit in the pit with you so you’re never alone).

They’re the ones who rescued me, because they made me rescue myself.

You might have to work hard at it, but in the end, it’s worth it.

Standing at the side of the ballroom, I swallowed my anger down, taking a deep breath before answering him.

“Look, I know you’re not lying, but do you have any idea how stupid you sound? How does any of this make sense?”

He blushed, looking around at the people dancing, trying to hush me, “Yeah I know, gosh, please calm down.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me out onto the courtyard, where the moon shone brightly, outlining his crooked jaw.

I’ve known Joshua for years, and we were betrothed for three months now, but as we were dancing tonight at the spring ball, he decided to tell me that he isn’t sure about our marriage.

“But…” I said, quietly now, as we were standing in the night air, peeking at his face.

He didn’t seem angry, he seemed… sad.

“Rose… Please… this is hard enough, can you not make a scene of it?”

“A scene? Bloody hell Josh, you want me to help you call off our wedding! Why wouldn’t I make a scene?”

Josh lost all the blood from his face, only his ears going red as the rest of his face went as white as the moon.

“What? Josh?” I looked around, shocked, confused, but mostly scared.

“I… I thought you wouldn’t care…”

I blinked once, then twice, staring at his perfect face that I’ve grown to know so well, and for the first time since knowing him, he truly perplexed me.

“What?” I stared at him.

“I… I thought you’d want this.”

“Want this? Why in the high heavens would I want to call it off?”

He shuffled his feet, looking anywhere but my face.

“Josh? Josh please, tell me what’s going on?”

“Do… do you love me?”

I couldn’t even ask him what the hell, I was speechless.

“O… Of course! Why… why would you think otherwise?”

“Why?” he finally looked back up at me, hurt, “Rose, you haven’t written me a single letter since we got engaged! I know your dad was thrilled when I asked for your hand, obviously, since marrying me will be uplifting your status, but… but I asked you because I love you, and I thought you did too… but then you stopped writing, the only thing I have heard is from your parents about wedding preparations…” He pulled his fingers through his hair, stepping away and sucking in a breath, “what else was I left to think, except that you only said yes because of my status… that you don’t love me at all.”

It was hard to see his expression now through my tears, but I knew that he was his pain, it was plain enough from his voice.

“Josh… I’m… I’m so sorry…” I wiped my eyes, trying to take his hand, but he pulled away.

“It’s fine Rose, I had enough time to think about it… you know I’m not like most men… if you don’t love me you don’t need to marry me-”

“No! Josh! That’s not what… OH good god, you’re insufferable sometimes!” I laughed, the situation putting me so on edge that I felt like I could do nothing else.

“I love you, Josh, with all my heart, I have loved you ever since you took me on that walk in the orchard. I was waiting for so long for you to ask, I kept leaving you hints and you just kept missing them! Writing me, seeming me here and there. You took forever to ask me, I couldn’t have said yes faster!” I shook my head, then sighed, and took a deep breath to calm myself down from hysterics.

He just stood there, face twisted with torment.

“I’m sorry Josh, I know you’re never very good at reading between the lines, I should have given you more than an implicit proof of my love… I guess it’s just so obvious to me, that I couldn’t see that it wasn’t obvious to you, and I am so sorry for that.”

I took a deep breath, and I managed to take his hands in mine, pulling him back to me. I looked into his teary brown eyes as I blinked away my own tears.

“I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Since we got engaged my parents have been going crazy, they haven’t let me write to you personally, and I haven’t pushed since I knew it won’t be forever, that soon enough we’ll live in the same house and I won’t have to write to you at all to tell you about my day,” I blushed, shrugging, “but I’m sorry it left you so worried…”

He didn’t say a thing, simply looked down at me, looking less sad, more confused now, but he still didn’t look as reassured as I wanted him to be. He was always so easy for me to read.

An idea popped into my head, and I looked around to make sure no one was there that might see or hear us, then I kneeled on one knee, carefully in my ball gown.

Hello hello!

This blog is for my writing challenge: Writing a short story thing every two weeks about a twenty one pilots song at a time - working from self titled (track in order of the album, not reversed) to TRENCH. Though I am not gonna stop myself if I’m on a roll of writing more than one per two weeks ;)

Please, remember that this is MY writing, so if you want to share, credit me fully.