Still standing

Soft, fiery crimson tendrils slip loosely down a spine. Smoky shades of jade conceal a pair of haggard, bloodshot emerald eyes. Lips that have cried a pain all their own glisten with a waxy shine. I stand in the middle of the floor, my lungs burning, legs aching, my heart hammering loud deep within my chest. Bodies move all around me; swaying, grinding, jumping to a beat that sounds like a distant melody. I feel drops of perspiration from their efforts sprinkle my skin in their close proximity as I shiver at my core, innumerable Goosebumps casing my entire body. I am in the midst of over 500 people, dancing, laughing, smiling, but it is at this moment in time that I have never felt more alone.

Last night brought an abrupt end to a seemingly semi-positive path, per say. After becoming aware and focused on my daunting task at hand and the consequences of what will inevitably become if not completed, one may say that for the first time in a while, I was determined to beat This. Granted, that is not to say that everything miraculously turned peachy and the angels of the Heavens sang a hallelujah chorus every time I took a bite, but I was taking steps towards what needs to be done. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. I awoke yesterday to a laundry list of tasks that had to be done, getting ready for prom among the bottom twenty. Truly, no part of me actually sought to go—excluding the fact that I was escorting myself, not even a group of friends to mask the hideous social discrepancy of my being—but a dear woman had already expended a patient sum of time fashioning an arrangement of flowers just for me. There was nothing unbearably awful about the day preceding my arrival downtown, just the detail of my feeling a bit under the weather (indubitably due to my compulsory restricting that day) and the obscure clouds of depression were indeed a tad too copious. I was, however, firm in my ambition to enjoy myself that evening and forget about everything else for just one night. Perhaps I am just too imbecilic to defend myself against the mounting feelings of pessimism, but after only around 20 minutes of the excursion, I craved nothing more than to leave.

But I stayed.

I remained because I supposed it would get better. Maybe, I figured, something prodigious will happen and I will start to feel a sense of excitement or joy. Perchance I will get asked to dance, or drag up the courage myself to be the crazy one dancing alone. No one notices the lonely. I am not socially awkward, nor am I shy. I have always been the very outgoing, down-to-earth, bubbly persona of a redheaded lady. However, during the course of events that have taken place since I was eight, and the toll that my illness has taken on me, I have grown to fancy the comfort of isolation as opposed to the warm ambiguity of another’s company. Childhood/teenage friendships never quite last, due mostly to my maturity level in contrast with that of others’ my own age. Relationships, there have been a few, but they essentially boiled down to my naivety in the human race and/or their impatience with my trust issues. It is not near the cheeriest way of going about life, I will admit, but it is the only way I know how at the moment. Until I am not living on my deathbed every bloody second of my life, I will never be able to function properly in the midst of the syndicate of another’s presence in my life.

Consequently, the result of my evening came as no surprise to me. I found insecurities raging with brutal force, the Voice determined to compare my body and talents to every living specimen in the room, heaven-forbid we exclude the flies that buzzed around. I felt a dull ache within my heart, a yearning for the comfort of a embrace from someone of compassion. I longed a touch, a glance, a smoldering dance beneath the lights. I craved the sharing of a laugh with another so close to me, we would call ourselves siblings. I found myself in the midst of this cacophony of emotions, unprepared and unarmed against their manic, blatant omnipotence.

I departed shortly before midnight, tears stinging the edges of my partially opened eyes, willing my broken tear ducts to let loose the brewing ocean. None came. Numbly, I slipped out of my shoes, one foot at a time, and hung my dress on the doorframe of my closet. I swiped away the paint that concealed my scarred complexion, and allowed my curls to fall in clumps along the contours of my face. Sliding into bed, I prayed a quick apology to The One Above, asking for forgiveness of my horrid musings and the blessing on all of the ones that I love.

And then I disappeared.

Blackness. It is a blank canvas of motion and sound, images incomprehensible as my subconscious takes control. My sleeping seems as though it lasts for years, and there are times upon my awakening that I cannot determine whether I am sleeping or conscious. Several times throughout each day I find myself unable to recognize any key mechanism of life to signify that I am not in some prolonged dream.

I sit here this morning, hunger pains rupturing a tremor through my veins, and I am contemplating a word for exactly where I am, both physically and mentally speaking. I am throbbing, starving, and I want nothing more than to sleep away the day in some medically-induced manner, but I know deep down that I cannot. Today I have to fight, I have to stand up to the Voice that devises my death; I will not allow the events of yesterday to define me. I am still breathing, I have not gave in yet, and until the moment that I have taken my final breaths of the icy, polluted air upon this earth, leaving behind a lifetime of mourning and pain to those whom I love, I have not failed.

I may be down, but I cannot be out.

~ by candyshele1204 on April 29, 2012.