Work Text:
{([Do you want to die?])}
When the answer is ‘no’ you’re carving out a hole in your flesh to bury your love within. When the answer is ‘yes’ you’re laying stock-still, motionless as the last picture you allowed to be taken of you from two years past.
Your body only feels like it belongs to you when you’re destroying it.
There are parts of you that splinter from your self. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where they end and you begin, but then you remember you’re one and the same and feel foolish. The deep-voiced you with stuttering robotic words agrees.
You like to lay on your back on the roof and stare up at the stars. One time your roommate thought you were planning to jump from it and panicked. You reassured them that it would be a terribly inefficient way to die and the horrified face they made left you feeling fake for hours after.
{The sky is deep, and dark, and eternally high.} The you with a voice that sounds like a prayer sings. You used to think you were one and the same, but it loves you far too much for that to be true. You can feel the ghost of its fingers scratching your scalp through your hair. You stare into the sea of darkness in which the tiny pricks of light called stars swim.
When you crawl back in through your window, you don’t close it after you. Your curtains dance in the night breeze and you watch them as you fall asleep.
The you with the most organic voice rarely speaks. When it does, a fight almost always breaks out between it and the mechanical voice, hateful and pointless. You think that’s what assures you they are parts of you- the way they hate one another is so near to the way you hate yourself. It bores through you as surely as it does them.
{Deviants, ids, parasites, cysts, freaks.} It chimes, on and on. This hate is like your own as well.
{They’re happenstance of consciousness.} As is everyone, but especially you. You have no purpose even as you try to create one. Write, write, write- don’t listen to them and don’t listen to yourself. Hate and write and then destroy yourself when your well inevitably runs dry. Then, when you realize nobody is going to come to your aid, pick up your disparate pieces and carry on until you crumble again.
You held that person’s hand and loved them so much it almost poured from your mouth. You were preparing for their departure long before they started to drift away. It’s only natural. Everyone leaves you. Or perhaps you’re the one who’s leaving, you can’t tell which.
(They’d rather die than be seen with us.) Was that true? You would if it were you in their shoes. They don’t yet know of the maladies you bear, writhing in your head and chest and eyes. If they don’t feel that way yet, surely they would once they saw the truth. You’re sparing them by allowing yourself to drift away. They can picture a version of you that’s whole if you leave now.
[It’s okay. You don’t have to care.] It is quiet and contemplative for once. It may be trying to convince itself. [Indifference is bliss.] You stop tearing holes open in your brain retreading your steps at its reassurance.
You sing until your throat is dry and carry on even when you know none of the words spilling from your aching throat will be usable.
You try to tell your soul that your life isn’t perfect, that your life is hardly a life. You backtrack- it’s not that terrible, you’re creating music. You’re actually quite well.
[For now.]
For now.
It isn’t that it doesn’t believe you on that matter, it explains.
{You’re like the stars in the sky, to me. To all of us. We want the best for you even if you don’t want it for yourself, man.}
The best for you, but not themselves. Isn’t that a contradiction?
It is, and they all know it. They can’t help it because you can’t help it, and they’re made in your image. You feel guilt and shame burning in your chest.
You used to think you were something special. Now you’re sure that was a lie you told to keep yourself together. You still have your passion, you remind yourself. You ignore the way that flame has started to dwindle and set yourself alight.
They sing for you when you can’t carry on. You can tell that they’re trying to hold you up, to bear the weight of the hopelessness that’s started to fall over you again. You can tell they know they’re going to fail.
When you reach the end of your rope, it almost feels like a relief. When you come back you’ll be able to create again. When you come back you’ll feel like yourself again.
You don’t apologize. You’ve done this too many times to have the right. You know you’re fleeing from your errings, leaving them to the selves inside you and putting them through hell for your sake. You don’t know what else to do.
([Wait! No, please wait-])
It’s cruel to ignore them, so you do. Maybe they won’t bring you back if you’re cruel.
You know they will.
You press your life into the hands of your soul, real and fake all at once. It is you and it will hurt when it isn’t, you know. You pass it on anyway.
{I’ve been waiting forever. I keep hoping this time we’ll get it right. I’m sorry I failed you again.}
It isn’t the one that failed. You want to reassure it but you can barely think and your edges are already starting to go blurry. You were never the one reassuring them, were you? It was always them trying to help you, trying and failing.
{When we come back, you can sing your songs again.}
You must’ve been singing about wanting that. You can’t remember even as it comes out of your mouth. It’s probably because your mouth doesn’t feel like your mouth anymore.
~
When you open your eyes you feel hollow and alone and know your self is gone. You want to cry even if you know it’s for the best. Whole won’t suffer through this violence, at least. You can bear the burden with aching shoulders and solemn resolve. You can save him this time.
He chose to give his pain to you when he offered you life. You accept his gift with open arms and let it run you through, clinging to it with the desperation you’ve long since grown accustomed to.
If you sob so long that you make yourself nauseous from swallowing your own snot, nobody is there to see you.
When you finally manage to stop shaking you try to sing.
It doesn’t help.