In the night

DISCLAIMER: I realize the imagery expressed in the below entry may be graphic and disturbing. Please note that I am alive and don't actually want any of the below to transpire, I am simply venting in a healthy manner versus any of the physical manifestations that I could use to cope such as those listed below.

The holidays are over. I managed to survive mostly unscathed--only falling to pieces in the pitch black of the night except for a moment when a sob managed to escape my chest while sitting on my best friend's boyfriend's black leather couch. I quickly recovered composure and pretended to not have seen her concerned sideways glance.

In the night, I imagine running and jumping, arms outstretched in a graceful swan dive off my roof. I imagine falling and the exultation that sears through my heart as I look out over the city that has taken everything from me. I imagine it would be perceived as a grand, poetic gesture when my bones liquefy upon impact with the broken, pockmarked sidewalk. I pray to still be conscious as my skull shatters on the concrete. I want to feel everything.

In the night, I imagine taking a box cutter and carving lines into my legs, hips. Scarring a trail of destruction, mapping the agony that weighs on me daily. I imagine sometimes cutting a little too deep, perhaps deep enough to bleed a little more, faint. The brilliant crimson liquid pouring from my veins, staining the floor, permanently leaving my mark in this ugly room in Brooklyn.

In the night, I imagine walking down the desolate street I live on to the bar five blocks away and drinking till I don't hurt. I imagine a man offering to walk me home and then proceeding to slowly torture me in the deserted park on the way home. I imagine that I don't even beg for death, I beg for pain, for him to be slow and meticulous in his brutality.

In the night, I dream restlessly. I am chasing him, screaming at him to look at me. But he is always a step ahead, deaf to my pleas. My voice never even actually loud enough for him to hear me, muffled and hoarse like I ate sand. I am too slow to catch him, my feet disproportionately enormous and weighty.

In the morning, when the sun has risen and my dreams begin to fade into distant memories, I know always I must go on. Any other decision would be selfish, cruel and cowardly.