After-Thoughts

One day he just kind of. . .Showed up.

He didn't have a name,
Or a reason,
Or a shape, at the time.
It was dark, so all I heard was a maturing voice coming from the shadows.

He just sauntered his way into my life
And made me so fucking angry:
Yet he was the light in my life.
Like I was a boat at sea
And he was the lighthouse;
He led me to shore and saved me from harsh waves.

I still encountered rough things-
Life can't ever spare you of them.
It's a bitch to deal with, am I right?
But he was there,
Waiting,
Always right there in that patch of grass lost in the woods.
Always when I needed him.

Most of the time, anyway.

He was the cause of so much turmoil
And stress
And panic attacks that had me curled up in the shower
Or under the covers
For hours.

That smug little smart-ass didn't know what he did to me.

He was the cause of so much happiness
And freedom
That I never had before he came along.

"Before he came along,".

Those were some damn-dark times.
I never left the house
And when I did I was in the woods,
Alone.
My brothers and my art were the only things I knew.
And people on the internet that bought what I made.
But they never stuck around.

He made me the cause of stress
And turmoil
And horror for my brothers.
One ended up in the fucking hospital because of me.
Because of him making it because of me.

He made me selfish.
He made me afraid.
He made me stupid
And ignorant
And fucked up.

He made me happy.
He made me calm.
He made me knowing
And alive
And human.

Then the day came that I realized
He wasn't real.
He was just another damned hallucination that fucked with my head.
Every day.
Every day I was living this. . .
This lie that he brought into my life.

It messed me up pretty bad,
To tell the truth.
Pretty darn bad.
I spent my days after that
Looking out a hospital window
And wondering why the hell it had to happen to me.

I was forgotten.
I became dull again,
Enveloped in my world of just me and my art.
My brothers didn't belong there anymore, in my world.
They screwed it up.
Screwed me up.
And so instead of my sanctuary being a place of safety
An escape;
It was filled with black and white
And nightmares
And closed spaces
And him dammit him!

But the day came
That I met the boy that
Made me so pissed off
And fucked up
And locked in a mental ward.
That made me so fucking happy
And free
And human dear god he made me real.

So the least I could do was
Sit on the floor
And comfort him through a panic attack,
Surrounded by fussing patients
And aggravated doctors.

So I did.

And I realized
I had been with him, too.
I had made him fucked up
And ruined
And happy
And alive
Just as he did me.

And we were drawn together,
Just like that.
A schizophrenic screw-up
And a delusional failed suicide attempt,
Right there on that freshly-scrubbed floor
Of a mental ward
Surrounded by fussing patients
And aggravated doctors.
But we couldn't care less.

We were there.
We were messed up.
We were stuck.
I was caught from falling
And he was breaching the surface.

We laid together that night
Breaking the rules and sharing a bed,
Curled against one-another,
Limbs entangled in a drunken haze
And we sucked in gulp after notorious gulp of life together,
A schizophrenic screw-up
And a delusional failed suicide attempt.

And oh, god,
Was it a relief.


After-thoughts of Alexander Linher, Falling

-Erin L.