SCRAPS OF HAPPINESS - an excerpt from someone else's memories

[tyu]

 

I'm fine.

Even as the ink corrodes my throat, I'm probably fine.

I need to be fine, I think. I need to calm down. It's not that bad, probably. I just- I just need to clear my mind.

There is literally ink in my throat.

You know what? This is fine. This is perfectly fine. This is normal, even. Even as my limbs ache, even as my vision goes blurry, this is fine!!! This is so okay, so-

so normal.

So normal.

I'm fine.

Even as I struggle to catch my breath, even as I struggle to see clearly,

even as all I see is the color black, dripping down from my mouth like bile. I, covering my mouth and falling, falling, falling, falling to my knees, to my knees that I imagine would otherwise shatter if I were not a human being. But I have begun to think I'm not even that. How can I be? How can I be?

If you are human, are someone, are one of many,

then you would not hurt in devastating ways, clatter, ground, hurt. This is fine. I'm fine.

Even as the world twists and turns and cracks and shatters and I look up and I can only see the morose reality, the end painted in dismal colors, my body weak, I am weak, I am painfully that word - weak. I cannot push myself to my knees, for everything simply hurts too much. So then, I cannot even stand, because it hurts so. I stare up, I stare up.

I stare up at the pit I've made for myself and others, the end painted in unloved colors.

Even as the ink is leaking out of my mouth, pouring out of my mouth,

and I can think to myself, ah, ah, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, even then, I can think to myself - is this right, is this correct? I am cold, I am cold, and then the end looks back down at me. I look up at the end and my gaze is blurred with tears,

so I cannot see even that properly.

My life is a tragedy told in a hundred different parts, from beginning to end,

it's this way, it's this way, where I can never know again, that word, that word, warmth, kind, kind, kind, never again, unkind -

I am selfish if I want. I am selfish if I need. I am selfish if I can't stand the consequences for being a bad person. It's all I can be, I think, anymore. Why am I this way? What did I do to deserve the hand that is being dealt to me? Through a gaze blurry, could I have met your eyes at one point, and not ever registered it?

I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss the days where nothing was this way, where it all hurts, only hurts, always hurts, never stops hurting. I don't want to be this way, this painful way that I can't bear anymore. I know I'm selfish. I know I'm wrong. I know I can't stop it, though. Even if I try my hardest, the color is still red on my hands.

The color is still marring everything I've ever touched.

And then there is the ink all around me, excessive, excess, me, in a crumble, a heap, a heap on the ground,

an excerpt from something that should have never happened.

I throw up ink black and grimace at the taste, but I can't bear to keep my head up any longer. It hurts, I decide with finality.

It hurts, and I'm sorry, and I'm so, so sorry -

 

 

 

and then I stare at myself, I stare at myself, at the blood and the ink and the emptiness inside of me, and I think,

It hurts.

I'm sorry.

It hurts.

Why did I let this happen?

It hurts.

What do I do?

It hurts.

I'm scared.

it Hurts

I don't

I

I don't want to die.

I really don't want to die.

I'm scared.

I'm scared.

I'm scared.

I think,

it hurts.

I think,

please don't think of me that way.

I think,

please don't think of me like I'm him.

I think,

please.

I think,

oh God, please.

I think,

I'm really sorry.

[And you look at me like I'm revolting.]

[And you look at the scene like it's meaningless.]

[And I know it is.]

[You tilt your head like it's interesting.]

[Even in death, I'm only a tool.]

[And then I watch as everything molds itself back together.]

[And then I stare as everything becomes as it once was.]

[But I was dead, so I can't stare or watch or gawk or know.]

 

[My narration is a failure.]

[The story's already over.]