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Every second of every day, I fall a little more in love with these mysterious eyes.
I cling to them as hard as I can, but the more I try to remember more about them, more about the man they belong to, the man who saved me and continues to save me, the further and further away they seem to get. And I’m determined to hang onto the ONE last good thing I have in my life.
What if he’s looking for me, too? What if he can’t find me because I’ve locked myself away from the world, and in doing so, I’ve also locked myself away fromhim.
If he’s trying to find me, he’ll go to the place where it all started. The place he saved me. It takes me five days to talk myself into leaving the apartment. I’ve gotten dressed, actually made it out of my apartment, down the elevator and into the lobby, before the fear stopped me dead in my tracks.
I’m paralyzed by it.
But not today. Today marks one month exactly since my life was destroyed. If I thought I had a shit life before, it’s nothing to what I have now. Now I live in ruins of what used to be. I’m haunted at every turn. Ever pair of eyes that glance my way have my heart racing. Every smile directed my way has my skin crawling. And if anyone gets within a few feet of me, I start to hyperventilate, which only makes them want to get closer and make sure I’m alright. I leave them staring after me in bewilderment as I run away, back to the safety of my apartment.
Crazy.
I think I’ve gone completely crazy.
But not today.
I hang onto the vision of those eyes. My heart is racing and I focus all of my energy on steadying my breathing. I pull the hood of my hoodie up and around my face, blocking out as much of the world as I can, and then I grip the pepper spray hidden in the front pocket until I’m sure I’m going to
crush the damn can in my hand.
I take one last deep breath and push out of the door onto the busy New York sidewalk.
Dee – 11 days ago
Words That Don’t Exist by Citizen Soldier
One year. It’s been one entire year since that night. My life has stalled, come to a complete stop. I have nothing and no one in my life. Both of my sisters have their own lives, the day-to-day struggle of adulthood has us all consumed and focused on surviving, one day to the next. We keep in touch, but it’s brief, and I sure as hell haven’t mentioned anything about what’s happened. As far as I know, no one knows what happened to me except, me, the piece of shit who did this to me,him, Sarah the nurse, and a handful of people from the hospital and police force, and I’m sure they’ve all forgotten about me by now.
But I haven’t forgotten.
I stand in the spot where it happened. I’ve watched the stain of my blood on the brick fade just like everyone’s memory of me and what happened has faded. How I found the spot where it happened, I have no clue. I just followed my gut, my instinct, but as soon as I saw the small pieces of my flesh still stuck to the brick, and the dark stain of blood, I knew I had found the right place.
I’ve been coming here every single day, for eleven months, right before the sun descends beyond the horizon. I stand here, in a trance-like state, staring at the place where it happened. I still don’t remember more than the feelings of fear and utter brokenness. Coming here hasn’t changed anything. I haven’t had an epiphany, I haven’t had closure, there’s been no healing, and worst of all,hehasn’t once shown up. I’ve come here every damn day, for almost a year, with the tiniest sliver of hope that he’d come and save me just one more time.
But he hasn’t.
He’s either not real at all or saw the truth of what I became. Nothing more than an empty husk with a broken soul. And if I was him, I would want nothing to do with me, too. Because even though he saved me that night, he was too late.
There was nothing left to save.
A year later, I’m completely empty. All of my hope for…something, is gone. I have nothing left inside of me. I have no words left to speak. At least nothing that would make sense to anyone else. I don’t feel anything anymore. Not even the crippling fear that I thought I would go to the grave with.
I’m empty.
I’m numb.
I’m nothing.
This world has nothing left to offer me, but more importantly, I have nothing left to offer this world. I’m just a being taking up space that could belong to someone else. Someone with hope and a beautifully bright future in front of them. And so, I resign my life.
I sit down on the dirty ground of the alley, my back pressed up against the same wall that held me up while my attacker took everything from me. I do have one last thing to give to this world. And I’m going to give it up, right here, on this spot of Hell on earth. I remove the piece of broken glass from my pocket. I shattered the mirror in my apartment when I looked into it and couldn’t recognize notone single pieceof the face staring back at me.
I have no fear.
I don’t fear the pain I’m about to feel because I know it will be fleeting. I don’t fear what comes next because anything has to be better than nothing. I don’t mourn the life I’m leaving behind because it wasn’t a life at all. I don’t mourn the people I’m leaving behind because they’re all better off without me.
I don’t hesitate as I push the jagged glass against the tender, paper-thin, skin of my wrist and cut…deep. I can feel the rough ends of the glass tear through my skin instead of smoothly cutting like a blade would have. It’s fitting actually, that not even my suicide would be the easiest choice. There will be no stitching these wounds back together.
