Can you see the pain through my eyes? Can you sense the agony that I am emitting? Can you feel the tears that are not falling?

What is this I am feeling? It is not new. I have been here before. Why does it have to hurt so much? It is so strange. To feel so much pain, so much agony… yet feel numb. It is unexplainable and so confusing. Why am I back here, why did I have to return to this forsaken place? I have crawled/scratched my way up this lifeless pit of misery many times before. So why does it feel unfamiliar… is it a new pit?

Are there different pits that I happen to fall into throughout my life? Are they reserved just for me? Why are the in my path at all? I do not need to be constantly tested for my strength. I know my strength and fortitude. I have taken many paths in my life with many ‘forks’. I have also had to make a few detours, but I have always been able to persevere.

I know life is not easy. That there are many obstacles in our paths. But why does mine seem to have so fucking many???

Maybe I was walking my head held too high and failed to see the gaping black hole in front of me… But that is not like me. I do not walk with my head held high like that. I look forward and I pay attention to my surroundings and all of the people around me. And yet, here I am… again, at the bottom of the misery pit.

I attempt to look around me, I can tell I am surrounded by death and decay. I can smell my past, it is a stench that I do not care to ever visit again. Once again, I look around, but cannot see anything. I am in complete darkness. I can sense this darkness, it is its own entity. I can start sensing its evil eyes looking upon me, longing for me to join them. It has many faces, many arms. I then start feeling the cold decayed fingers and hands reaching out for me. They grab at me, trying to get a good grip. As I stand there in total darkness, I feel various decrepit hands all over me… They grab at my arms, my legs, they are all over me. They struggle because they are weak, yet have some strength because they know the darkness, they live here, they are in their element. And they are lonely, they want/long/crave for another soul. They want to feed off of me, they want my hope, my life, my being. They need it, they must have it. I just stand there, stuck in fear and amazement, I do not fight them. I can now ‘hear’ them beckoning and pleading for me to join them. In unison they ‘tell’ me that I should join them, that they can take all of my pain, misery and agony away. They ‘say’ that I do not have to feel this way, they can make it all better, make all of it disappear. All they ask of me is to completely surrender to them, to let myself go, and they will take care of the rest. As I listen closely, I hear evil shrieking and angelic sounds. I then realize these are not voices at all, these are not human voices speaking to me. I also realize there are no sounds coming from their putrid mouths. They are communicating to me through my mind. They are in my mind. They can feel everything I am feeling and it excites them. They are feeding off my fear, my pain, my agony, my confusion and what little hope I have left.

As I stand there, I can feel them consuming the life out of me. I am not fighting them, I am allowing this. As they are consuming my being, I slowly start to feel relief, a sort of peaceful feeling starts coursing through every ounce my being. I feel home. I feel I am where I belong. This is it. This is not only the answer, but the feeling of relief I have been searching for. I just stand there and let them have their way with me. They are all greedily sucking all of my pain, my agony, my hope.

Suddenly I feel a dampness on my face, I am crying, I can feel the tears rolling out of my eyes. This snaps me back to ‘reality’, I ‘wake’ up in a daze and realize where I am and what is happening. I happen to look up and see a flicker of light. The longer I stare up, the brighter the flicker gets, it is glowing. This terrifies the creatures, I then realize they are extremely scared of light.

I make the decision to have them stop feeding off of me. I am not giving them my being. My hope, my fear, my agony and pain… those all belong to me, not them. These are all part of who I am. It is not theirs to take.

I realize the longer I stare up directly into the light, that I am controlling how bright it gets. So I use every ounce of hope left inside of me to make that flicker  turn into a mass of light. I can feel the heat from it, it is comforting and welcoming. Everything these creatures had sucked out of me was flowing back into my pores. All of my hope was coming back, along with my fear, pain and agony. The mass of light exploded, harming all of the creatures making them retreat back into the darkness. I could ‘hear’ the shrieks, I could tell they were angry and in pain. And just like that they were gone. I could not feel or sense them any longer.

Just then a ladder made of hopes and dreams appeared before me. When I touched this ladder my fingers/hand went right through it, this ladder was not solid. I did that a few times. There was no way I could climb out of here on this thing. It was not ‘real’. I knew what I had to do, I had to believe. So I closed my eyes and put all of my belief and faith in this ladder of hopes and dreams. It then became solid, and I was able to climb my way out of that pit of darkness. That ladder was made up of my hopes and dreams. I still have enough hope and dreams to keep me alive, to help me find my way out of the darkness.

Out of the darkness, I now find myself in a field of nothingness. I am alone, there is nothing around me. It is not dark, nor is it bright, it is just enough light for me to see. To see I am alone in this field. I am not clothed, I am cold and scared. I am not sure where to go, or what to do. I see that the gaping hole has closed itself. I look around, there is no where to go. I am confused and completely lost. So I just sit and wait…

~January 18, 2013, Bekr H.

_________________________________________________________________________

NOTE: I wrote this yesterday. I am obviously in dark place right now. I have been in bed for 2 days, which is extremely unusual for me. I usually am able to force myself up and do things. But not this time. I am scared. I am terrified of my thoughts and what I may do. Knowing that, I stay in bed. It is my safe haven. I wrote this story giving me a way out of the darkness. Unfortunately, I am still stuck at the bottom. But I can see that flicker, so that keeps me going. I am hanging in there. I know this will pass… I just have to make it through… I do not know how long this will last. I do not know reasons for feeling the way I do. I do not think there were any triggers to bring me here. I just don’t know. Until I make it out, I will keep writing and keep drudging through.