Once Again, I Take The Pills

There’s a story within my scars I am not ready to tell, a story I do not think I am entirely ready to hear. You see, even now as the gaping wounds have begun to heal to glistening scars, I am not ready to marvel at their beauty, my resiliency. I am not yet able to trace my fingers over them without wincing, without wanting to sink back into the darkness I had just clawed myself out from. I still hide them from the world, afraid of the judgment. Afraid their careless words would slice as a razor through my softened skin, my wounds gaping and oozing once again, spilling all this darkness back into my daytime. I would return to being a vampire. Drawing the blackout curtains of sun-filled windows, taking refuge in bedroom comforters, burrowing deep into my pillow, waiting to drift off to sleep, just to be awakened by nightmares escaping my dreamland and running rampant in my waking hours. Take the pill, it will calm you down. Everything will settle for a little while and I can pretend I am not unraveling like the wool sweater hanging in my closet from last season. The one I pulled apart thread by thread, watching it shrink in my hands. Wool spooling around my wrists as I pull my skin apart the same way. Thread by thread. Until I am nothing but bone. I take that skeleton and I hang it in my closet next to that unraveled sweater and I stare. I stare so long my eyes forget what it is like to see. I let the darkness envelope me. I take the pills.

The sun rises and I do not pull the blinds, instead I am outside basking in her warmth. I am running barefoot in fields of fresh grass and wildflowers. I make small talk with buzzing honey bees. My heart beats freely against my chest, reminding me what it feels like to be alive. I am elated. My world swims in fairy dust in golden hour. I wear daisies in my hair as I pull the stars from the skies. I place them in my mason jar and keep them on my shelf. I let it light my nights as I wish on falling stars. I take the pills. 

The sun does not rise today. Instead, I am greeted with storm clouds. I make friends with the skeleton in my closet and it tells me secrets. Whispers things in my ears that make me want to crawl back into bed. I have forgotten the daisy chains of yesterday. I pull on my tattered sweater. I release the stars from my jar. I take the pills. 

I take the pills. 

I take the pills. 

I take the pills until I am not sure who I am anymore. 

And that is why I don’t show my scars. I am not ready to hear my story, to watch your face twist to apathy as you listen. I am not ready to risk this numbness, this nothingness. Oh god, there is such comfort in this nothingness! I am not ready. And so 

I take the pills.