Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Thirty Three - No One Cares

I consistently expected time off from school to be relaxing and peaceful. Obviously, though, since the universe's greatest talent is disappointing, I was always dissatisfied.

Logically, having a pause from being forced to do pointless homework and cram for idiotic tests would make me all cheerful and serene. I should spend the minutes that I would normally waste in boring classrooms doing absolutely nothing and enjoying myself all the while. But I was me, and I was fucked up in some confusing and undefined way, so being in bed at the end of an unproductive day had my sanity crumbling.

My clock was ticking over to two twenty, my ear buds kept getting yanked out of place when I moved one miniscule muscle,  Blink-182 was on shuffle, and I hated myself. I'd never been one of those people who instantly turned miserable and started deteriorating when the sun set, but shutting off all my previous distractions and confining myself to my thoughts once deciding that I needed to go to sleep had my consciousness collapsing on itself.

Music  made me happy. That's what it was for; I smiled at the songs that I loved, focused on lyrics instead of my insufficiencies, and laughed with and at my favorite band members. Isolating drum beats and picking out specific guitar riffs calmed me like nothing else, and that was one of the remaining reassuring constants in my life. I was terrified of the moments when music failed me and my own detrimental thoughts managed to overpower the notes that I so loved, and I was absolutely clueless as to any other solutions to the internal problems that tormented me.

Except for, of course, injuring myself. Pain was what I resorted to when I was in the company of others who deemed playing music unacceptable and I needed to relieve some stress, or songs were incapable of shutting off my head and making me feel something that wasn't negative. But on spring vacation, silently blinking water out of my eyes, observing only empty blackness, curled around a pillow with my fingers strained from their tense grip on the case, I didn't want to experience the sting of a blade or scratch of my nails. I wanted to be assured that I was valuable, that I meant something positive to someone, that there was another person breathing on this planet who cared that my oxygen was being choked down with restrained sobs.

While it may benefit the mental health of others nicely, doing nothing was sure to have me cracking apart. If I wasn't even somewhat pulled out of myself, I'd undoubtedly began to think of how I was losing my life and was completely useless and doing exactly nothing important and may as well be dead, because what exactly did I contribute to the earth that anyone even noticed? I was totally exhausted and unable to sleep. A hiatus from high school didn't help; I needed a leave from being me.

Reckless Abandon blared through my headphones, and I sniffed grossly and gagged on pathetic noises as tears escaped faster, because I loved that song an inexpressible amount, and it didn't even procure a ghost of a grin anymore. I was consumed by the idea that no one cared about me, as false as I fully knew it to be,  and there wasn't anything currently available that was capable of getting to me through that.

I was tired of feeling like this and being who I was. I was tired of everything. I was tired of being tired. I was just so tired.

But my mind and body were intent on destroying each other, refusing to reach an equilibrium and let me sleep.  There wasn't any conceivable chance of me getting any rest like that, with my currently useless music throbbing almost painfully against my eardrums and head insulting every aspect of myself, so, further defining me as a quitter, I gave up. There was no use in suffering through that, and I was done being so embarrassingly pitiful, clinging to a lifeless pillow and crying to myself in the dark. I was a lonely, overdone cliché, and I was sick of being another stereotypical fucked up teenager. Not even my issues were original.