Category : Stories

Sub Category : Drama

  I used to play here everyday. The grass bowed and waved, the blades around me tickling the sides of my bare feet.  Now the blades only taunt me.  Not just the grass, but every knife and razor too.  
   What happened to my early childhood?  I pushed past so many memories and made myself forget until I didn't know myself anymore. It feels as though my life just began one day, at seven years old, standing at the front of a second grade class, turning in a paper. Why there? Why then? 
   I had four happy years from then: I loved much, giving friendship and love to anyone who asked. I was everybody's friend; or maybe just everybody's fool. I laughed loudly and often. God, I miss those days.
   Then darkness came. In a brighly-lit room on an autumn day. Darkness quenched the light that I held, covering it with the blood and torn clothes, and innocence stolen by a trusted loved one. I was eleven. I had been told to "listen to whatever he says." I was scared to say no. I didn't know that I could.
   The shadow reached out and gripped my heart, and from that moment on, for many years, it was all I felt. I found that there was no love left in me. I felt as if I was suffocating. My pillow was soaked with tears, and what was left of my heart was filled with rage. 
   Isn't life funny?  Fate would have it that soon after this happened,  my mom would want to have the "safety talk." "You should never let anyone touch you... Be careful who you are alone with..." Halfway through the talk, I knew I had disappointed her.  I couldn't bring myself to say the words: to tell her how I had broken her heart. If she didn't know, she wouldn't feel the hurt, I reasoned. 
   So I suffered alone, in silence. About a year after darkness fell in my heart, the pain became unbearable. I needed an outlet.  Again, darkness stepped in, but this time with an answer. A girl in my class had drawn an "x" on her arm. I looked at my own arm, and saw the blue veins shining like beacons through my fair skin. I wondered how much blood would flow, and how much it would hurt. Surely not as much as the pain I already felt. 
   Next period, I found a campaign button for our schools "junior student government." I don't remember how the election turned out that year, but I remember how the needle felt as it carved into my skin. I swear the teacher looked right at me, but she never said a word. This new pain was nothing, and I found the pain in my heart dulling. I had found my outlet, but would it be enough? 
   For nearly a year, that pin was my best friend. Then it stopped working. My next inspiration came from internet images, kids with dark hair and clothes, who looked like they knew pain, had taken razor blades and cut across their wrists.  I tried it once, and it became an addiction.  Every time cutting a little deeper. Every time, feeling worse after the bleeding stopped.  At sixteen, I knew what I had to do. 
   At this point, my mother had found my razors, and disposed of them. I took a  knife , and turned it the other way. I felt weak, but the weakness numbed the pain. I was dying, but I was finally feeling relief from the pain that made me want to die. Life and death are so full of sick irony. 
   Again,  fate would step in. A friend betrayed me, and in doing so, saved my life. I was finally able to tell what had happened. The vice around my heart began to loosen at the speaking of each word.  My heart was still badly damaged,  and I imagine it will be until I wake into eternity, for I also found faith in God. It took five years, but I was finally free from the hold this darkness had over me. I regret the wasted years. I regret not opening up to my mom the first time the topic came up. 
   I write this as a plea to the broken.  Don't fall into the trap of darkness. Let yourself be open with someone who will listen. Don't give in when shadows come.


   Forgive me for the rambling, but in honesty,  one often rambles.