The ambiguous truth corrupted my process. Trying to avoid the distractions was a bane. Spoiled thoughts and the lack of movement poisoned my resolve. Action was necessary in moments I had passed too long ago and every subsequent trickle poked me like a thorn. I wished the mice that scrambled through my plaster walls could remove the thorn and give me peace. I was never a lion, but always a fish. Mice are poor swimmers.
Something happened a half-my-life ago that ruptured my ignorant repose. The shake within writhed a sour song and I felt death rub my sleep. I would wake, sweaty and incoherent in the half lighted hallway of my night boyhood home. Just shaking, trying to remember something besides the thumping behind my eyes. I would cry until my mother awoke to carry me to bed and rub my back until I fell asleep. Her worried face was always delicate worn porcelain.
I would dream of the sky opening and there being two moons and I felt just like the periwinkle hue above the horizon before the sun rose. I would dream of wolves watching my sister sleep under her powder blue canopy bed. I would sing down the iron heating grates hearing my echo roar. Afraid of the dreams and the headaches they lived with, I would await rest in bed and smear my tears on the faux paneled walls.
My whole life I wanted to be alive and every wish I wished was to wish again.
Love was always an anchor for me. I had cut the rope years ago but the comfort of knowing the anchor rested in the sediment waiting, wouldn’t let me drift. This was how my parents punished me. Their worry of my existence applauded their misery. They shunned martyrdom, they laughed at it behind a mask of alcohol and regret. I didn’t want to be loved and they couldn’t help loving me.
Physicians and school counselors applied tests to me and they prescribed challenge. I was bored and my hyperactivity of sleepless nights was a result.
“Wear him out. Mentally and physically.” They said.
I was prescribed an accelerated academic program and youth soccer.
So much for leaving me alone.
Apathy ruled my disposition. I struck out with temper and blatant insubordination of authority. I was sure that a negative aberration would change their mind. I was restrained, tortured, I sat in the school nurse office for days on end for my temper tantrums. Meanwhile, I excelled on achievement tests while flubbing the psychological. I was alone, but some hobgoblin twist with a key in an outlet eschewed my destiny for escape.
So I died cold, over and over, like the protagonist (that wasn’t a dog) in every short story that Jack London ever wrote.