Heart shaped box

Abysmal existence

This chapter was written from the perspectives of different characters, this is a very sad and dramatic collection.
TW: substance addiction, suicide, overdose, self harm, hallucinations

Makeshift warmth // Toby
The hole was always there, in the beginning I tried to fill it with real things, people, jobs well done, stories that read like a coming of age movie, but when the noise is quieted there is nothing left.
I enjoyed the loudness of the day, the laughter, the strange feeling on my skin, but when I was left to take off my face I never had myself to come home to, the hollowness never ceased it just became easier to ignore.
I would love to be held and feel it deep within myself but the hole is larger than me.
One day, maybe the best day of my life, maybe the worst one, it's too soon to say, I found it.
It never made the hole go away and that's what I liked about it, it made it a comforting place to return to, it provided sanctuary amongst all the noise.
It seems that I have been looking for my whole life and this is the closest thing I have found to feeling whole.

Waiting room at the car wash // Toby
I always wanted to be a person, I always wanted to be real, I tried to pretend I could be.
I listened to indie music and wore strange clothes. I met people who liked the face I wore, I talked with them, I held them.
I always felt like more of a hole than a person, I tried to find things to love but I always swallowed them.
I told myself that one day I would become a real person, that something would occur within and outside of me and I would become someone three dimensional and real, so I waited.
I waited in community college, I waited in laughing loudly in an empty summer, I waited in friends who love you but don't know you.
I waited in trying to like things I didn't like, I waited in being called the lovable kind of weird, I waited in prayers to a God I didn't believe in.
I waited in considering telling this story but knowing I never would, I waited in sad poems that would be ripped into bits, I waited in crowded lonely rooms.
I waited in beds with people I wanted to love, I waited in bags with twisted corners, I waited in strange bottles, and none of it made me real.
Maybe life isn't for everyone.
Women are more likely to kill themselves with pills and men are more likely to kill themselves with guns but I've always been a pansy and now addicted to things I would rather not write down because it's easier to tell the story in autopsy, so I wait some more.
I wait behind the gas station with more money than I thought I'd ever spend on a hollow peace. He gives me a strange look and I don't care.
I sit in my dimly lit city apartment staring at the ceiling. I stopped listening to music but I know what song I'll pray to when I'm ready. I wait until I know it is my time, I don't know how I'll know, but I will.
I take off my face every time I come home and stay up until the early hours of the morning staring at the ceiling in the quiet, I wait until I am ready.
In a slow instant I knew today was the day my heart had already chosen. It was such a boring day. No angels, no fights, no emotional conversations, no tears, nothing that wasn't here already.
So I sit here in the hollow apartment staring at the ceiling again, but I won't do that tomorrow. Tomorrow will be different.
It's easier to swallow handfuls of pills than it should be. It's easier to die in the same aching story than it should be. It's easier to die than it should be.

False conviction // Rowan
You didn't know he wasn't real. You didn't know you were talking to no one, but what you did know was the horrified look on your mothers face, you almost heard her say "not you too."
You never wanted to be another person she couldn't love out of illness, but here you are.
You tried because you loved her, you tried to put the pieces of yourself back together because you were not going to be this. You are not ill.
"If you keep acting crazy you'll scare people off. Is that what you want?"
He said it so calmly, as if he were reading a receipt. Those words are etched behind your eyelids.
For many months you didn't know what was real. You were unsettling and strange. Maybe you did scare people. But you did try, and you were damn sure of it.
Slowly a medication or two or five, sometime six returned you to baseline, you became worth loving again, you were harder to love before.
With your newfound eyes, eyes that didn't lie to you, you did your best to disprove your illness. Back then you were young and confused, but now you were different and you were not ill.
You were a straight B student instead of missing class because of appointments, you had a girlfriend who loved you like you do at sixteen instead of being avoided by and avoiding the general population, you talked calmly instead of rambling and raving. It exists behind you, and only behind you. You were not ill.
You enjoyed a small, bright life. You went to school dances. You laughed loudly with your friends. Your mother looked at you with happiness instead of ache. You are not ill.
You didn't notice it at first, that's the nature of this illness you don't have, sometimes you don't know until there is nothing left to do, sometimes you don't know at all.
You laid in bed staring up at the ceiling, the muffled voices and whispers are from the tv downstairs. The people out of the corner of your eye are just something looking a bit odd from a different angle. You are not ill.
You found yourself staring at the ceiling more than you used to. You found yourself speaking less than you used to. You pretend to be Rowan but you stopped feeling like him.
You're pretending to go to bed early again staring at the ceiling like you always do. You hear a velvet woman whisper
Rowan, do you see me? Rowan, honey, tell me you see me.
You turn your head and you realize that you are alone in this room. You had been defeated and the game had not even begun.
Maybe you should have told someone about this. You agreed to it, but you weren't ill. So you packaged yourself up and dedicated yourself to silent survival. You were not crazy and you were going to live in reality even if part of you was incapable of that. No one is going to see you like this.
You told your girlfriend you're just a bit down and your mom that you're feeling tired. You taped yourself together and denied any accusation of abnormality.
You sit in front of your nightstand rocking and holding yourself. There are more voices than you can count but hers is the loudest and they know exactly how to bruise you.
You scare people. Do you like that Rowan? Oh honey you don't stand a chance. You know that right? You are not someone worth loving.
You feel hot tears come down your face. "Please be quiet please."
Darling, you can get rid of me. Remember? Lord knows you've tried.
You press your skin up against the cold wood of your nightstand, you throw the back of your head up against it over and over again.
This isn't very pretty. Is it? Do you ever question why you try? You will only succumb to this. Right?
"Please shut up! Just shut up please! For the love of god be quiet!"
"Rowan?"
Do you really think that a girlfriend of yours will still be around after seeing you like this? I mean just look at her.
Everything folds in on itself, there is no internal understanding left within you, you are nothing but fear.
"Rowan, talk to me! Are you having an episode?" You start a sentence and start another one and start another and finish none of them.
Why would she love someone like that? Why would she love someone like you?
You would do anything to stop this. You fold in on yourself. You hurt yourself. You yell and cry. You hold yourself. You sing to yourself.
"Honey, it's mom. Madeline is on her way home, she says she loves you. Rowan, talk to me."
"No, no, no this wasn't supposed to happen."
"Honey, tell me what is going on."
"I can't make her stop. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry honey."
"I wanted to be good for you."
"Rowan, you don't have to be anything but what you are."