Searching for Purpose (Twenty One Pilots)

16. Strawberry Chickens

Tyler stared at the small bottle he held in his hands. All of the sudden everything felt so fragile; as if one small movement could break everything. He had decided that morning, after the penguin incident, that he wasn’t fit to fight off his demons alone. Since he couldn’t find it in him to open his mouth and cry out for help, he chose the next best option: sleeping pills.

“Tons of people need these,” Tyler told himself as he shook one out into his palm. “Doesn’t make you weak. Everyone needs to take medicine. Everyone needs some help. It’s normal.”

He swallowed the pill and chased it down with some leftover energy drink form earlier. He probably should’ve used water, but Tyler figured that his life was already messed up. One small thing such as this couldn’t make that much of a difference.

“And the list of things that I’ve done but shouldn’t have just gets longer,” he mumbled to himself.

He set the bottle on the shelf where one of the penguins used to be and switched off his lights. It was only around nine but Tyler thought that he might as well go to sleep now and see how much the pills help or not. Plus they were having a “pop-speech” in class the next day and Tyler thought it would be best to be awake and alert for that. 

As he laid there in the dark, Tyler’s mind began to wander. Shocker.

His eyes moved around his room, studying the shadows that objects from his shelves made on the walls and trying to read his posters in the dark. He listened to the sound of Ryan’s music, his neighbor and apparently wanna-be independent artist, and the steady beat of Josh practicing his drums from down the hall.

He thought about how everyone in his building had their own lives and their own thoughts and how weird it was that everyone was so independent yet they all depended on each other and how life was actually pretty confusing and not as black and white as everyone made it out to be. He thought about how he felt alone and how he really wasn’t but yet he was and how there were people here but they weren’t here and how all he wanted to do was talk to someone but no one would listen to what he said they would simply hear his words and never really understand what he was going through.

And that’s all he really needed, Tyler decided. He needed someone to listen. He needed someone to understand. He needed someone to hold his hand and not necessarily lead him but stay with him and be by his side and show him that things weren’t as bad as he thought. That things could get better. That they did.

That’s all he needed.

Eventually Tyler’s eyes slipped shut and his breathing evened out and everything went quite around him. Ryan turned off his music and Josh sat down to write the essay he had been putting off for too long. All was quiet and and was well and Tyler's eyes slipped shut as he drifted off into a deep sleep.

When the morning came and Tyler’s alarm went off way too early for his liking, Tyler stumbled out of bed and actually, for once, felt rested. He was still tired as hell and wouldn’t have minded if by some miracle he was given three more hours of sleep, but his mind was empty. There was no regret to push through from events of the night prior, there was no pain in his hand where he might have punched a wall to stop himself from doing something, there was no guilt from knowing he let people down; there was nothing. There was only the remnants of the dream he had had last night that were quickly fading, leaving Tyler to wonder why he had been haring strawberries with bunnies and punk guitarists in the first place.

It was nice, Tyler decided. It was really, really nice. It was so nice that Tyler actually smiled genuinely back at Mark when he walked into class. He didn’t try to fake it or hide his feelings behind his some sort of mask.

“Did you sleep well last night?” Mark asked as the professor got his papers in order.

Tyler smiled again. “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, I did.”

“That’s great. Sleep is good,” Mark smiled. “You know, last night I had this really weird dream.”

“Really? Me, too.”

“That’s weird. Mine was about this chicken that stole all of my bracelets, which is weird since I don’t own any bracelets, and I was crying and the guy from the ticket booth at the movietheater down the street was laughing at me. It made zero sense,” Mark said. “What about yours?”

“I don’t even know,” Tyler replied. “I think I was sharing fruit with some dude from a band and a rabbit, but the guy was allergic to the fruit and then told me I had really pretty eyes before rolling down the hill we were sitting on.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Tyler spent the rest of the day thanking the Lord that he went and bought the sleeping pills. He was awake for both his “pop-speech” and the calculus notes he took two hours later and he was still awake at nine that night when he was sitting with Josh in the library and trying to balance spoons on their noses.

Josh was convinced that he had a faulty spoon since his would fall shortly after he placed it on his nose, but Tyler just thought that he didn’t have the skill that it took to artfully balance silverware on one’s face.

“No, dude, you have do it- no. It’s gonna keep falling if you do it that way,” Tyler pointed out.

“No. I got this. I will balance the spoon,” Josh stated.

Tyler laughed. “Not like that you won’t.”

“Shut up, I’ve almost got it.”

“Sure you do.”

Tyler laughed even harder as Josh’s spoon fell, yet again, onto the table they were sitting at. Tyler’s spoon was still perfectly balanced on his nose. He wasn’t about to tell Josh that a little bit of spit could make the spoon stick better to the edge of his nose.

“I don’t understand you, Tyler Joseph,” Josh said as they caught their breath from laughing. Tyler removed his spoon from his face and looked at his friend with curiosity.

“What do you mean?”

Josh sighed. “One day you’re all quiet and sad looking, one day you’re shaking violently as if you’re your own landmass and you’re having an earthquake, and the next you sitting across from me laughing your ass off about spoons. I don’t get it.”

Tyler’s eyes fell to the table. He had hoped that he was getting better at hiding everything, but apparently not. That, or Josh as just really good at telling when things were wrong. Tyler wished that it was the second one. He didn’t need to add more things to his list of failures.

“What’s up,” Josh said when Tyler didn’t say anything.

“I-,” Tyler started. He didn’t know what to say. Sure, he trusted Josh with his life and would probably be the most comfortable telling him what was really going on, but Tyler couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t find the guts.

Because you’re pathetic and scared and worthless.

Because you know he doesn’t really care.

No one can possibly care that much about you.

Not even your parents care.

Not even your siblings.

No one cares.

You'll be alone forever.

You're a faliure, Tyler Joseph.

A pathetic, useless faliure that can't even talk to his freinds.

That can't cry out for help.

That can't do anything right.

“I don’t know,” Tyler finally stuttered out. “I don’t know.”

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I've got a queue of songs but I need more. Any favourite songs or songs that help you get through tough times are welcome!