In a torrent of heavy rain and piercing hail, the realization of my despicable inability to relate with humanity struck like lightning, a recurring blitzkrieg, one that shocked my senseless naiveté into a void of no return. Sending mental thunderstorms to clash with my light, feeble, self-assuring words, my miniscule voice was drowned out, love and acceptance becoming mere lies, as the flood of amplified animosity and rejection spread hopelessness throughout my world, my asylum. The fury that engulfed me was that of flame, a constant, rapidly spreading chaos that licked at the binds of sanity, one that tore my innocence from me, charring my soul and leaving scars upon my arm that would never fully heal, scars that stained my once benevolent nature with blood. The flames consumed me hungrily, eating away my once celestial thoughts and bringing abhorrence towards my owners that compelled my formerly chaste self to maim and murder those who maltreated and mutilated me so. As the raging fire died out, my body suddenly grew cold and rigid, and it felt as though a thousand pounds of ice were being placed upon my back, cube by cube. The chilling, howling gale that met my soul was that of the mysterious, indestructible Depression, a demigod of deathly woe. Its eyes were transparent, absent of all feeling, and its gaze met no other. Its bloody corpse, foul and putrefying, reminded me of what was to come, the inevitable fate that awaited me.
“You’re so stupid,” one kid sniggered.
“Yeah, you’re like gay or something,” another added cruelly.
Numerous insults were hurled at me, each one growing in strength as the steady stream of loathsome words swamped my brain.
“Stop, stop!” I cried, my pleading tone becoming more and more obvious. “Just leave me alone!” My wails were ineffective, however, and all of the kids started to dance around me, pushing and shoving me, insulting me brutally. Tears slid off my face and my eyes burned. My vision was blurred from the intensity of my sorrow, and I felt powerless. The chorus of “Pussy! Pussy!” echoed off of other people, thus despoiling my self worth. I desperately longed for a release from this Hell, an end to the pain that would not diminish. I buried my face in my hands and wept, hoping that this sign of weakness would satisfy those bloodthirsty monsters that surrounded me and force them to vanish. This, unfortunately, was not the case, and a series of rapid footsteps sparked my curiosity. I quickly raised my head up, hoping to find the area clear of all people, but instead was met with a backhanded blow that left me sprawled out on the damp grass, blood pouring from my busted lip. Laughter erupted from the amused crowd, and it seemed to eternally torment me until I could tolerate it no longer.
I lost the ability to feel physical pain, but the emotional mark on my soul was still obliterating me internally. I felt physically unbeatable but emotionally drained, as the blood surged through my veins, empowering me and yet cursing me, as the loss of control created a new demon inside of me, one that would extend itself beyond just this moment of vehement rage. In a sudden flash, I was pouring not tears of melancholy, but tears of mounting frustration, as I repelled the pusillanimous behavior of my once pure soul and foolishly began to envelop my entire self with undying hatred. With what little courage I had in me, I sprang up from the ground and began to swing wildly at my enemy with the insatiable desire to kill. Much to his dismay, and afterwards my astonishment, I managed to knock him on his back, at the same time drawing blood.
As he fell, his “tough guy” act cascaded down around him, and his loyal friends, bound to him by nothing but social power, sought to aid him in my defeat. They grew enraged and abandoned their smiles, twisting them into expressions of aversion.
“Grab him!” a thunderous voice boomed demandingly. “Make him pay for knocking out Kyle!” Snarls of approval rang out and without warning I was seized by two behemoths, and my arms were yanked away from me, leaving me defenseless and immobilized.
“No, no!” I pleaded. “Please just leave me alone!”
“Why the Hell should I leave you alone, you scum?” a gargantuan boy who had just strode up to me snarled, spitting in my face. “You don’t deserve to live.” He began to repetitively assault me, grinning with demonic malevolence as his knuckles connected with my already throbbing head. Searing pain shot through me like I had never felt before, and my silent screams were to become my nightmares. After this dire event took place, I was the one chastised, not my sadistic torturers. I grew angrier and angrier day by day, the series of bloody brawls that followed constructing a web of poison, a trap that lay dormant within me but would soon become active as the years progressed. A fragment of my heart blackened and fell away, never to return. This was the sixth grade, the beginning of the end.
In time, I learned to absorb this anger, this umbrage towards humanity that I now possessed, and transformed it into self-loathing. The alteration that occurred in my already confused beliefs created corruption within me that remained inconspicuous for many years. Every insult fueled my rage, and I became blinded by its dominance, until even my own shadow taunted me. I heard the spoken language in a new way, as every word seemed to scream at me, defiling me further. Even the vaguest sense of dislike aimed at me became a deadly blow, and every hidden thought that others did not share with me became as clear as water. Every flaw in me, every error became my source of pain, the pathway to my mental destruction.
I had just received a perfect grade point average on my seventh grade first trimester report card. Feeling rather proud of this exceptional feat, I rushed over to my mother and sought only her compliment on my excellent performance. The grimace that appeared was not what I had expected.
“What is this shit?” she demanded. “You got a damned C in Music?” I tried to find an appropriate response, but all that came out was a whimper.
“I’m sorry.”
The disgusted look that washed over her face caused my entire body to tremble. “You useless pile of shit, why can’t you do anything right?”
“But mom!” I protested, “I still got all A’s in everything else!”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because you weren’t really trying. Look at this A. It has a minus sign after it. You weren’t trying. You never try, you little shit.”
“I wish you’d just accept me for who I am and not for what you want me to be.”
“It’d be easier to accept if you weren’t so damn retarded.”
I kept silent, not knowing who was right or wrong in this matter. Finally, I retorted, “I wish you weren’t my mother.”
“I wish you weren’t my son. And I bet that everyone in your school hates you, too.” She said this with a vile look upon her face, and immediately I began to doubt myself.
“Mom, am I really a retard?” I asked worriedly.
“Yes, you are. These A’s are nothing,” she said, gesturing lazily at the grade sheet. “I got A’s in all my classes, and I slept through them.”
“And,” she added, “I didn’t get any minus marks on my report card, or get any C’s in Music.”
“Mom, I’m not you! I can’t do what you can do! I can’t be what you could be!”
“That most certainly is true,” she agreed. “You cannot be me. But you can do better than you are doing right now.”
“No, I can’t!” I whined. “I can’t do any better than this!”
She turned to face me, a glint in her eyes. “Look around you, and you’ll find that every other person in your school can earn A-pluses in everything. Look around, and you’ll find that you’re the only one who struggles with homework. You’re the only one who can’t manage stress and handle easy tasks like taking care of your two siblings and getting your work done. Why, when I was your age, my mother would work late, and I would be responsible for the entire house: cleaning, cooking, and household chores. What do you do around the house? Nothing compared to what I did. You are a self-obsessed, self-centered piece of shit, just like your father.”
“My father?” I asked curiously. “I thought he was working as a teacher!”
“That’s not your real father,” she said, a smile forming on her face. “No, that’s your step-dad. Your real father was a no good, dirty, cheating, violent man. Do you know how come you never met him? Because when you were a baby, about five months old, he shook you around and put you in a coma. Because he didn’t want you. Nobody wants you. Nobody will ever want you.” She said this with such conviction that tears sprang out of my eyes, pouring out of me like a waterfall. I hid my face from her diabolical eyes, as I did not want her to arrive at my school, enter my classroom, and announce to the entire class that I had cried.
When we arrived home, I grew faint as depression harnessed my energy and began to feed. “What if this is all true? What if everyone does despise me?” I thought to myself. I fled to my room in anguish, and never again did I compliment my own achievements. Never again did I receive all A’s on my report cards, either.
My first attempt at love turned out to be an awakening of my senses. I was and still am terribly shy, but I did not realize that I was more than just timid. I had always believed myself to be ignored because of the annoyance I caused, the nuisance I was. That was not the only reason my voice went unheard, nor was it the first. It required time to unravel this hideous truth, time that would inevitably come to pass.
I decided that to try and win her love, I would write her a beautiful poem, as beautiful as the pristine aura that enhanced her so. It was written as follows:
Your blue eyes remind me of the raging sea,
so fierce and wild, so free.
Your blue eyes remind me of a perfect sky,
a place where all dreams lie.
Your shining white smile reminds me of fresh snow,
with perfection, it glows.
Your shining white smile reminds me of a pearl;
You are my perfect girl.
I was too shy to deliver the poem to her directly, so I asked someone to do it for me. He obliged, and all was well until she received the note. She let out a blood curdling scream. A crowd of people rushed hastily over to her aid, for she was the definition of beauty to even the females.
“What’s wrong?” they demanded of her.
She shuddered for a minute before she spoke.
“Him,” she whispered dramatically, pointing at me. “This ugly, disgusting, putrid freak wrote me this stupid piece of shit!” she shrieked, causing me to recoil in fear.
Everyone around her glared at me as if I had a mark of death branded on my arm, for they began to speak in harsh whispers that I could not interpret. Then a fierce expression came to meet me, and I recognized it as Jacob’s, the once supportive friend of mine.
“Please!” I pleaded with him. “I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”
He stared down at me with such acrimony that I couldn’t help but plea with more devotion, a plea that’s call went unanswered but not unheard.
“Shut up, you sniveling little ass,” he commanded. “I don’t want your apologies; I want you dead.”
These words came in such a way that I was caught off guard. I had never imagined that a friend once so loyal and peaceful could turn from me in an incomprehensible instant. Saddened by such loss, I retreated into myself further, never seeking love again, but always having its taunting nature loom over me like the odious vengeance that I seemed to inspire. This simple note provoked the rage in others that transferred to me their true feelings, unadorned and pure.
I would dwell on my mistakes for hours at a time, refusing to accept that no one was perfect. In my eyes, everyone but myself was perfect, and I was despised because of my weakness. I desperately strived to obtain that sense of perfection, if not for love and admiration, then for a sense of self-worth. My ultimate goal began to daunt me, the desire to be needed, even wanted, by another. How could anyone want someone as tarnished as me? All kindness that I received, every compliment, became a lie, a conspiracy in my perspective. In that way, I began to search for all of the flaws within myself and soon compliments became insults, as I believed that people were teasing me, or being sarcastic when responding positively towards me. I became fanatically devoted to finding these imperfections, creating a self-image of a rather disturbing nature. Darkness loomed over me, the eyes of the damned waiting, watching.
My graded essay was returned to me. I scanned the areas with comments on them, managing to overlook the ones that stated positive features and instead eying the highlighted mistakes wearily. As I reached the final portion of the essay, I found a list of all the positive attributes in my essay. I ignored these, moving on to the final accumulated score. My heart sank; I received far below what I had hoped for. My final score was 183 out of 200. I had obtained an A, but yet, I was dissatisfied. I sat, my body growing numb, tears crawling down my face. The English teacher, baffled by my sudden loss of control, sauntered over to me, her face full of pseudo-concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, worriedly. “Why are you crying?”
My answer came out garbled as I muttered, “Nothing’s wrong.”
Not understanding what I had said, she repeated, with a slight urgency in her voice, “What’s wrong?”
This attention bothered me, and I frantically desired its abrupt end. I mustered up enough of my emotional control and regained my composure. I smiled up at her, wiping the tears away hastily, and replied with insincere assurance, “Nothing’s wrong. I’m alright, just a slight mental breakdown.” She smiled, satisfied by this answer, this lie, and returned to her desk. All was forgotten, and no one inquired why I had cut marks on my arm, for no one knew; no one cared. Ninth grade proceeded, and still I had no name.
Then arose an abrupt turning point in my rapidly decaying life. Unfortunately for me, this turning point caused my life to deteriorate even more, and at a higher intensity. My mother, sick of my constant feud with Depression, drove me, unaware of where I was going, to a hospital. Befuddled by my mother’s actions, I just sat in the car, waiting.
“Get out of the car,” she barked rather cruelly.
“Why?” I asked.
My question went unanswered, as it always does, and I was left to wonder. Confused, I slowly and cautiously rose from my seat, my eyes darting everywhere for some sort of hint that would sate my curiosity, fear, and rising suspicion. When gazing at my surroundings came to no avail, my intrigue led me to follow my conniving mother, though I was still tensed for a sudden attack. No one assaulted me, and I went in to the hospital a little more than afraid. Were they going to try and fix me?
I found my mother speaking in a low tone to the lady at the front desk, which was windowed off so that no one could infect her. She nodded, handing my mother some paperwork, and told me to have a seat. Trembling, I trudged across the miniscule space to a vacant chair. Across from me there sat a diminutive eight-year-old girl with her mother. The girl was bleeding from a head injury, and looked to be in a great deal of pain. I gazed at her with sorrow radiating from my eyes; I could not help but feel the pain she was forced to endure. Why was I here? I had no injury, no emergency, no threat to my life. Yet I failed to overlook what my mother saw as a liability: I was my own threat. For approximately forever, I sat there, demented, suicidal thoughts swarming around my brain, chocking my consciousness. When the lady at the front desk finally called me back to the office behind a wooden door situated the left of me, I rose weakly to my feet, shaking with panic, all the while stifling the compelling urge to sprint back outside, to the cold, sweet aroma of freedom. The very essence of my soul abandoning me as I entered, I trailed behind my mother, envisioning her being slaughtered repetitively, her blood being drained from her writhing body, her carcass withering away into sheer stench, a retched stench, the stench of what she truly was, a foul beast endowed with the manipulative powers of a Venus Flytrap, her sugary words and alluring charisma leading others to her cause, a malicious cause.
The door slammed shut with a finality that rang in my ears, a finality that only I could sense, like the fly before the spider, like the mouse before the cat, one that shook me until the very bones in my body began to rattle, creating a morose tune that sounded much like the wail of a ghoul, a trapped incarnation that spoke in shadows, only to be suppressed by the light.
“So, what seems to be the problem?” the lady said, coaxing me in a falsely sweet voice. Though she addressed me, my mother was the one to answer, though I did not request for her assistance.
“My son,” she stated, in a slightly controlled, slightly shaking voice, “is a danger to himself and the rest of my family. He needs some kind of treatment.”
Turning to me, the lady spoke to me in a stern, now businesslike tone.
“Is this true? Are you having suicidal ideations?”
My impertinent mother interceded on her own behalf again, speaking harshly, “He needs to be locked away in a loony bin until he learns his place!”
The lady stared up at my intrepid, yet also foolish mother for a fraction of a second before turning back to meet my petrified gaze. She repeated the question.
Terrified to the point of paralysis, all I could do was nod my head slightly, in confirmation. Taking this small, almost undetectable gesture as evidence, she gave me a band. In the background, my mother held her head high, a smug expression on her face, as if she desired nothing more than a disturbed son to wreak devastation upon.
“Attach this band to your arm,” the lady ordered.
“Why?” I asked.
“It is an identification band. You will be here for a while.”
I straightened up from my semi-relaxed slump in the chair she had provided and hysterically began to ask a series of questions about why I had to be there and why I could not just go home.
She responded with a casual wave of her hand and the threat of restraint, and forced me into a hospital bed in an unoccupied room. I began pleading with my mother, but she would not even spare a glance in my direction, as if my very gaze was poison. Throughout this torture, there came needles, doctors, psychologists, and pain, pain that would never falter.
I was utterly humiliated, being transported via stretcher onto an ambulance, though I had received no injury. The ride was tiring, for I had not slept that night, and I knew that when I was released from this mental jail they were placing me in, I would have no hope of a normal life.
“Everyone goes through this sort of thing,” they all lied to me, except for my mother, who was the only person I could trust, bizarrely enough.
When I arrived at the new hospital, I could hardly breathe. The doors were all locked from the inside, and as I was being hauled in, I caught a glimpse of a mentally unstable kid launching himself at a doctor and trying ruthlessly to rip her hair from her head. I turned away, fearing what was to come. I was carried down a hallway of mental adults who could not function properly. One of them eyed me and mouthed the words “You are going to die”. I shrunk within my shell, shifting into my own horrid thoughts, a temporary relief from this Hell of which I was barred behind. For what seemed like eternity, I watched as they placed the key into the lock and rotated it, opening the door to my cell.
The door was thrust open, and I was flung into the room, a diminutive room, a colorless, odorless room, a room in which all dreams were immured within its confines. The world was a blur, and I never seemed to be there, as if I had created an illusion around myself, a nightmare that was released from its stable, one that galloped around in my skull aimlessly, only causing immense headaches, incurable headaches. My blood was poison, and the more prominent the unconquerable fear became, the faster my blood (the poison) pounded through my veins, destroying the immaculate image of who I imagined myself to be. For a week, or at least, what I thought to be a week, they kept me contained in the morbid hospital, completely isolated from civilization, where truly psychotic people poked and prodded at my mind, giving me various medications to try and extirpate the dreary Depression, attempting to postpone the unavoidable.
I emerged no more mentally puissant than before; in fact, I felt a lot more resilient to the bellicose nature of my mother, the betrayal formulating a deep desire to decapitate her, and each curse uttered in her direction rang with eternal conviction. Time progressed much more disastrously than before, leading to complete chaos in my feeble brain, a never ending pandemonium that reduced my mind to sludge.
The anger that I once possessed now returned to me, but not as it had done before. In my room, my sanctuary, I sat on the hard floor, overwhelmed by the immense burden on my soul and mind. My thoughts were a whirling vortex of self-hatred, defiance, and anger. I wanted it to end, suddenly and without feeling.
“God!” I wailed. “God, if you exist, please end this damned life of mine!” Fervently, I pleaded with God to smite my horrific body, my grotesque self, and reduce me to a pile of smoldering ash. Never did the wrath of God approach, my prayers becoming meaningless words uttered by a meaningless mutant. My own mother and father treated me with contempt and malice, hoping that one day I would simply cease to exist. I desecrated myself, turning my relentless rage to the blade, and soon my arm was unrecognizable amidst the scars. Every slash of the blade reminded me that I was powerless, an inane peasant in a world of deities. Constantly, I sought refuge within myself, growing insane from the lack of social interaction, withering away into nothingness.
The final stage of my revelation came forth at the end of ninth grade as I was conversing with what few “friends” I had. The day before, I had gone home, only to be met with a barrage of verbal abuse. Seeing no feasible way out of this, I began to plan for my death.
“I’m sick of this Hell!” I exclaimed morosely. “Why can’t it be different? I feel like I simply want to phase out of existence, and I’m suicidal almost every day!” My tone showed no sign of anger, for my anger abated considerably as time progressed.
“Cool!” one of my friends laughed, enthusiastically. “I suggest a gun. You can buy one from me if you like.” As the rest of my so called “friends” joined in the conversation, they too began listing effective ways to commit suicide, offering me suggestions eagerly. I staggered back from this knowledge, dumbfounded at their readiness to accept my demise, and even more surprised by their joy. My own friends were telling me to die. The impact that it had on me was devastating; for a week I said nothing. Then I began to feel the hatred for others that I assumed to have disappeared long ago. Humanity was set against me. The world was my enemy.
So now I dislodge myself from the gods of this earth, and slither namelessly upon a path of demons, as a creation of the Devil. I have allowed no approach at my despoiled soul until now, and my secrets grow in number every day. I feel pain that isn’t there, hear screams that are never emitted, and witness brutal acts of violence that never occur. I remember every negative aspect of my life and shunt away the positive ones, believing them to be part of a conspiracy, a twisted joke that only a fool would fall for. All of humanity, I now realize, abhors me and desires my death, or doesn’t associate with me.

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Publication Date: 01-22-2010

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