I don't know why this happens but something must be done.

My mood invades me without warning. I'm laughing and joking with friends and then I feel as if I'm about to cry. I go into my room and turn the lights off, but when I get there I don't feel like I'm ready to cry anymore. I wish that I could cry, it would make me feel better, it always does, but it doesn't come. My unnaturally elevated seratonin at work...I can still feel pain I just can't feel it.

It's not self-loathing anymore, I have no reason to feel this way. It's just an emotional pain that I can't explain, a sadness not for myself as much as for the world. I feel like an exposed nerve. An unwillingness to accept the world as it is handed down to me, so full of flaws.

And I've exhausted all of my options it seems. I can't starve myself because that makes the pain worse, I can't throw up the meal I just ate because last time I did that my throat hurt for weeks (and the friends I was just joking and laughing with are still there), I can't cut myself because then I will scars (the ones from last time are still there). But something must be done.

That's when the images start. The first set are full of warm colors, peaches and reds, and brightly lit. Young naked flesh, drawing myself a bath and laying back in the warm water. Taking a razor blade off the side of the tub...a real razor blade, not a safety blade that would be lying around the house, an object that I would have to obtain myself. And I draw a line down my wrist...vertical, not horizontal. I don't feel this, it's only images, not even sounds, but the first drop of scarlet falls from my wrist and hits the clear water, becoming a beautiful swirl of blood and water. The second line is drawn and more crimson swirls fill the water around me and I lay back, eyes focused on the ceiling since the water around me is no longer beautifully psychedelic but a uniform pink.

The second set of images are filled with blues and grays and darkness. I'll just turn on the engine of my car and run a hose from the correct place to the correct place. No pain, all I'll have to do is wait. But I won't wait in the driver's seat, that wouldn't be an apt metaphor for my pain. I'd bring a pillow and a blanket, the bedspread off of my bed and curl up in the backseat. Radiohead will be playing in the CD player...A handshake of carbon monoxide with no alarms and no surprises...No, too cliche. Now we are one, in everlasting peace...We hope that you choke...That's a little obvious, and what's this 'we' stuff anyway, I'm only too alone. I'll just put in The Bends and maybe Fake Plastic Trees will be playing about the time I breathe my last.

Who will find me, I wonder? In the first set it will be my mother...I don't think I can do that. In the second set it will be someone I don't know. Maybe someone from the Parking Department, that's almost funny. I should put my two unpaid tickets in the driver's seat. Along with a suicide note of course, it would be a waste to off myself without a note...a final chance to say something and be damn sure that everyone is paying attention.

What the hell am I thinking? It hits me that I'm thinking about killing myself in such clear and concise detail, an act I could never go through with, but it's actually making me feel better. I still can't cry, though. An image of my mother getting the phone call almost brings me to the edge, but I sob soundlessly and without tears. This has to stop.

So I run to a friend nearby. He talks me down...I shed a few tears. Not as satisfying as a flood would have been, but enough to appease my appetite for now. And I do feel better, I've just really scared the shit out of myself.