The last thing I remember is colliding with something. I couldn’t stop in time. I taste something metallic on my tongue. I touch the edges of my lips and my fingers come back a deep shade of crimson. It all goes black. Oh no. Oh no. What have I done? How could I let this happen? I am not this reckless, I am so careful. So careful that I probably came out of my mother’s womb wearing knee pads and elbow guards, this tiny body wrapped in bubble wrap.
I can make out where I am. This isn’t familiar but it feels like I’ve been here before. There is a harsh white light directly above me. I open my eyes and it glares back at me. It takes me a while to adjust to my surroundings, to make sense of what I was seeing. I tried moving my arms and they wouldn’t work. I try to wriggle free, the more I squirm against the restraints, the tighter they get. The chains cut through my flesh. There will be marks on my wrists tomorrow. A leather belt runs across my torso. I am held down, like I am a flight risk or clinically insane. At risk of self harm or a threat to those around me.
At first, my chest constraints under the pressure. My heartbeat is frantic. I can’t seem to breathe right. There is something wrong in the way my lungs attempt to draw in air, the contraction and expansion, no, it doesn’t feel right. The reality of the situation dawns on me. I am held a prisoner. I am strapped down, I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t —
These shapeless, baseless, blobs of emotions forming under the conscious levels of my mind are starting to turn into something. I know how to breathe. My lungs work. My heart beats. My ribs are just fine. A brief moment of calm is washed over with red hot anger. Suddenly it all looks clear. These tiny blobs come at me like fireballs. I fight harder against the restraints. My skin screams in agony, I can barely lift my head up. My vocal cords are still intact. I scream.
I didn’t do anything!!
Why do you not understand me?
Why do you not believe me?
WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NOT BELIEVE ME?
I’m met with deafening silence. My ears ring, a shrill high-pitched sound that nearly ruptures my eardrums, I want it to stop. I want to cover my ears. I can’t move. I scream and scream. My voice bounces off the walls and comes back to me. Nobody hears me. Nobody is here. There is no door to this room. There are no windows. The walls climb as high as my gaze can reach. The floor is white. It’s patched in different colours of cloth. It looks like a fully padded room. I won’t hurt myself if I tumble off this bed. I won’t break a bone even if I ran towards these walls in full force and slammed my body, head first onto these walls. That’s a fantasy.
Breaking out is a fantasy.
Breaking out is a fantasy.
I am still strapped against the bed.
The voices float above me.
You aren’t meant for this…you can’t adjust…you are just looking for an excuse…these are just ways for you to leave…you don’t know that…you don’t know and we know better and we are telling you that there is something else here…people trick you…people are mean…why do you do this…I told you so…I knew you’d give up midway…
My first words as an infant were, “let me explain.”
Age sixteen, and I had learned how to justify my existence. I have a reason for everything. I have reason why my heart works the way it does. It’s not a biological condition, I have an explanation for this.
WHY AM I WRONG?
WHY AM I WRONGED?
I have never known a version of myself that has existed without a reason.
I don’t like to be misunderstood. I could recognise that look from a mile away. The look. The disbelief in their eyes. The tone of their speech that makes me want to make a powerpoint presentation to justify every single one of my choices, my breath, the flow of blood in my veins, the reason my feet touch the ground and why my hands move the way they do. I look around. The walls are a little too close. They are closing in on me with each passing thought. The colours on the floor bleed into one. The bright shades of blue, pink, yellow and hues of orange, like the colours of sunsets and rainbows, all bleed into burgundy.
Why are you wasting time…why aren’t you productive…why do you have this dream…why do you want to do this…why do you not want to do this…
I look for answers. I come off as a wise old owl, glasses perched low on my nose, I tilt my head up pretending to think and I say, “so here’s what I think and why I want to go down this path. Let me explain.” There is a physical ache to always having an answer. It gathers somewhere beneath my ribs, presses against my throat and crawls up my spine. I don’t have the privilege to say I don’t know.
I DON’T FUCKING KNOW.
I have it all figured out. I know what I want of my life in the next ten years. I’ve got dreams and goals and ambitions but deep down I am just an another pretentious jerk who shows off that she’s got it all together. Most of the times I want to say ‘oh I have no clue what I am doing, guess I will just figure it out on the way. Life’s about fucking around and finding out anyway. It’s not that serious. It’s not supposed to be. Right? Right?’ No one agrees with me. So I go back to the only thing I seem to be good at: thinking about what everyone else thinks of me. Because I don’t want to be misunderstood. I can’t be misunderstood.
I stare back at the white lights from my bed until those little things float in front of my eyes and I am almost blinded by how bright it is. How harsh. How cold. The lack of warmth is diabolical. Curious stares. Eager ears. People who only want to hear that I’m working on some project, that I have nothing worth noting. And yet, they remain curious. Curious enough to ask everyone except me. How long does it take to send a text? ‘What are you up to? How are you doing?’ Apparently, even silence needs an explanation. And when I turn my face away in a conversation I am labelled. Did you see how selfish she is? Their gaze never meets mine. Instead, they ask their mothers and friends of friends when they haven’t heard from me in months. I rank as a popular gossip.
Oh she has friends? That’s a surprise.
She calls her sister every Friday? We didn’t think they’d be quite the pair.
The voices tangle. They overlap. My ears hurt. My throat burns. I want to wash it down with whiskey and ice. Drink and eat my feelings, because my body isn’t a temple. It’s a madhouse, with lights on and nobody coming to let me out. Thoughts I can’t tame and madness that doesn’t outgrow me. I want to dowse these flames. I want to put the anger somewhere. Anywhere. It has to go somewhere. Rage consumes my body and the knife is at my throat. When there is no outlet, the anger turns inward. It’s a slippery slope from there. I am not sure if I should point the gun to my head or point it at the others. I don’t know if I should be tamed, claws cut, put in a cage so I’m left pacing, or if I should let my words shoot to kill.
She can do no harm.
She is naive.
I am naive.
I can do no harm.
I tug again. I thrash on the bed. The restraints tighten. The walls close on me. The room is smaller. There is not enough air to push into my lungs. There is not enough oxygen reaching my brain to think straight. I can taste my thoughts. Tears slip from my eyes, soaking my temples, running through my hair. I can’t wipe them. So I scream.