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If I could stop crying, I’d write something. But today has been full of tears. Why, oh why, do you have to go?

Another shot for Brighton Pride!

I received a small ‘get well’ card this morning from a distant aunty. I have seen her once in about ten years, and I was slightly taken aback. I sometimes wonder what impression my family has of me - many of my Dad’s family are reserved Catholics. And many of my mother’s family prefer to bury their heads in the sand, preferring not to have much contact with us. My immediate family have always been the black sheep of both sides - my mother, father, brother and myself all suffering from mental health problems, as well as my father’s addiction to cocaine. Growing up I never had much contact with either sides of the family, other than sporadic relationships forming and falling apart soon after. I guess I first stood out for being the gay one, and more recently for my spell in a pyschiatric hospital, my addiction to self-harming, and now yet another suicide attempt. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to live their lives - safe, secure, knowing that their children are living happily on a day-to-day basis, as opposed to my mother’s constant worry about what state I will wind up in. Sometimes I dream about what it’s like to exist in their family, to know where I’m heading and where I’m from. Instead I spend my days not knowing what direction my life will take, falling through the cracks. I wonder if they see me as helpless, a lost cause that is best forgotten, marked with the occasional sending of a sympathy card.

Riding in the back of my Mama’s car, looking up at the sky with my blanket over me, I thought I was returning to my sanctuary. As the sky fell into a dark blue, I looked out the back window, my mother’s smell in the car, and lie there shaking as the sun set. I came home because I felt that there was no other option. My mother has come to save me, to feed me, to clean me, to return me to the closest we can find that is normality. Since I came out of hospital I have struggled to eat. I have not bought food for a matter of weeks, surviving on scraps, friends bringing food, or simply just ignoring the desire to eat. I had begun to worry as I struggled to button my jeans, but in no time at all they button easily, slinking down as I walk, the weight dropping off me happily. It is not that I do not want to eat - I simply do not desire to. Food has become an enemy, a chore that I detest and ignore like my credit card balance. In many respects, I do not care to get better.

My mother tries to feed me all types of enticing foods. She conjures prawns, duck rolls, traditional English roast dinners but I refuse them all. The only thing I enjoy is the pink wine that fills the fridge, the brandy that sits comfortably in the cupboard, the swallowing of pills that transport me into any realm other than here. At night I lie in the princess bed, staring up at the blank shelves. As a child I used to lie here and try to count the amount of book titles my mother owned, hundreds of complex biographies. Now this room is bare, a shell of what I used to remember. I give into confusion, succumb to medicines, and each night I drift into a deep dreamless sleep.

Today I lie there for hours, in the princess bed, simply staring at the ceiling. I do this when I am confused, when I am lost, when I desire nothing but sensory deprivation. I lie there from 10am, til 11am, noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm. I lie there for hours dreaming of other places I could be, other achievements I could accomplish, other people that I could be. When the telephone rings, I answer hesitantly, not knowing what to expect. It is him, the black marauder, and he speaks until the death of us. Through tears and heartache, we cannot decide on our future, and consequently we decide to part ways. “Now this is awkward - I have some of your stuff,” he states. “What shall I do with it?” he asks. I arrange, cooly and calmly, to collect it from outside his work place. 6pm. Then I shall leave. I am suddenly awash with tranquility. But under the surface I know that something is seething, heat beneath my skin, the premise of death sweet on my lips. To him, I am cold and calculated. There is a silence that lingers on the line, long and deadly, before I utter goodbye and the sly click of the line terminates our agreement. To love each other, to want each other. This contract is dead.

Goodbye. I have never felt so much in these words before. It has ended a world I have forgotten how to live without.

I stand in the kitchen, my trousers around my ankles as my mother inspects my legs. “Look at this one,” she says. She places dressings over the holes in my legs, one in particular. I recall; I placed the scalpel on my thigh, pressed down hard, and allowed myself to drag the blade as quickly as possible. What happened was remarkable - the skin split apart, wide and fast, and the fresh pink skin cells beneath rushed upwards. It took a few minutes but the blood rushed to the surface, a river of crimson, that flooded and dripped and seeped. My mother holds a dressing to its surface, the skin flushed with green infection, and I let the antiseptic burn away at my skin. It is a reminder of reality.

Goodbye. It is a word that I am beginning to know, so intimately.

Leonidas (aifol.net | lj)