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Post by William Beckett on Mar 27, 2011 5:44:52 GMT -5
It's ironic how crazy this place drives me. The longer you insist you're sane, the longer you're here. The longer you're here, the further from sane you get. Silence is my shield. They can't tell if I'm getting worse if I don't say a word.
I'm getting reliant on these pills. They don't change a thing. The only real anti-depressants in my life is your touch. Do you know I'm here yet? Did anyone even tell you? I want to speak to you, but I can't break the silence. So I'm waiting.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 27, 2011 6:24:55 GMT -5
I want to say, but I don't know who I am: patient, doctor, visitor, mineral, other. Sometimes. No. Yes. Unknown. Skip.
It's like playing 20 questions with myself and never getting past the first one. But we're all here and we keep playing the game. We're all here and we're watching, and we want to make a move. Something outside of daily doses and injections when I start to bite again. Something outside of constant pajamas and smoke breaks without lighters just to fuck with me more.
I'm in-patient, I'm out-patient. I visit when they let me go, and usually only for them to have less of a trip to track me back down. But who Am I (are we) to talk? I'm in(un)patient again. I don't know what happened this time, the doctors think I just need a little more therapy, more counseling more drugs. And so, I'm stuck inside this place, inside a room, inside my head.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 27, 2011 8:32:16 GMT -5
We're all lonely here. I see it in everyone's eyes. The meds make us smile, but not happy. People don't quite seem to notice the difference. I do. The less I speak, the more I'm left to observe. He's lost. I see it every time he comes back. It's the fact that he comes back, that's probably what makes it most obvious. People don't come back here a lot. They either leave, leave me, leave us all, and get better. Or they leave, escorted, broken, more broken then people should ever be- or can ever be, and still be called people. They're taken to a place where there is no options. You get better, or you don't leave. And I'm left behind. Maybe someone here sees me. Best of all, maybe they even hear me. Hear the voice I never use.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 27, 2011 22:51:18 GMT -5
I'm left to free time in the lounge after they watch me swallow the purple and white pills. Make me drink a whole cup of water afterward, check my mouth with a flashlight. They've learned most of my tricks by now.
They'd kept my robe from last time, I like it, it's blue and blues calm me down. I'm sitting in a blue chair, staring at the blue tiles placed around the floor, looking around at the blue. The Xanex always makes me do this, Xanex is blue and it calms me down.
There's a boy in a blue shirt, alone in a corner. He looks far too young and too pretty to be in a place like this. His expression I find unreadable, but he's blue. Figuratively and literally, so I keep staring. Every so often his gaze flickers around, and once I even though he'd caught me. I can't be too sure, because there's a painting of the ocean beside his left arm, and it's also blue. So I stare at it, and think about the boy, and think about how drowning feels. Drowning is blue and it's calm. I think I should try that next time. I let my eyes flicker back to the boy, and I catch him staring at me, and I smile.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 0:17:21 GMT -5
I got a reaction. That was new to me. My silence makes me comparatively sane, or at least appear to be. The patients tired of me after a few days. I wasn't the new boy anymore. I didn't exist after that. Only the doctors and nurses saw me- when they begged me to speak or when they handed me my pills. When they checked my wrists. I've spent group session crying before and no one saw, no one responded. This boy saw me. My eyes sunk straight to the ground, my hands gripped the opposite arms, nails digging in. That slight action, slight response. That break from normality. I was fucking terrified.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 28, 2011 0:44:56 GMT -5
I cocked my head to the side, watching his reaction. Anxiety, worry, fear, pain. Self-inflected emotions brought on by inactive or overactive synapses firing inside the mind. You learn to read medical pamphlets when you're stuck inside a hospital.
I feel myself stand and walk towards the boy, I feel like I'm floating. My meds keep me doped up, but at least I'm showing improvement. I haven't heard a negative voice in almost a week, but that doesn't mean I haven't heard something. My socks shuffle quietly against the dank linoleum and I'm not sure if he actually notices that I'm standing near him now. Not with the way he's folding into himself, eyes closed and creased in a way that makes me think he wants to disappear. But you never disappear when you want to.
"Hey, my name's Gabe, I don't know if you're new or if you were here last time I was....last time I was kind of out of it..." I slur a few words, but I think I did alright with introducing myself, and I wait for reply.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 2:05:01 GMT -5
My eyes are watering. It's insane, the way I'm terrified of the slightest touch of human interaction. My hands weren't just digging in anymore, they were scratching. Harder. I think they were bleeding now. I don't think I heard a word but the name. I muttered it to myself, over and over, Gabe. I looked up, glanced him over, and the name was gone. He wasn't Gabe. Christofer. I liked that name, it sounded right by mine, and now he had this whole identity in my head and this is why people scare me, because they can't be the people I want them to be. No one can. I create people. No one measures up. And the boy that I'd created, he was so perfect. I couldn't help it. I said it. "Hi."
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 28, 2011 2:20:15 GMT -5
I smiled wider, it felt strange and out of place. Stretching at the corners of my chapped lips and tired eyes. I noticed the scratches he was making on his arms, but there's nothing I can do for them. I'm just as hopeless anyway.
"What's your name, blue?" I ask, and I notice the evening nurse out of the corner of my eye. She looks shocked, a pill cup laying on the ground, colorful capsules spilled out on the floor.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 2:26:18 GMT -5
That was as far as I could go. My voice couldn't come back, it was underused, raw and scratchy, even for the one word that I'd brought it out for. I could feel eyes on me and I got too scared. Tears were streaming and I shook my head, as fast as it could go and sunk back into the corner, pressing against the wall. I'm meant to observe. I exist through the eyes of a fly on the wall. I tried to shrink back into that shape, tried as hard as I could, until those bones, those obtrusive bones that pressed out of my thin skin were cutting against the wall. My spine was going to bruised tonight. And in my head, all I could hear was this perfect boy, this Christofer of mine, and the word blue.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 28, 2011 2:35:19 GMT -5
A frown quickly overtakes my expression, it feels right there though. What wasn't right was how this beautiful boy was reacting. It's all your fault. I have to breath deep before saying, "It's okay, you don't have to answer." Just stop, he hates you obviously, who wouldn't? I have to grit my teeth and push back the anger that's slowly flaring inside my chest, a glance at the clock tells me I should've been dosed again hours ago. I glare at myself, before looking back up, and reaching out hesitantly to brush away a tear.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 2:38:56 GMT -5
I sigh, relief brushing over me and half a smile creeping onto my face. Over Christofer's- I'd already forgotten his real name- shoulder, I saw a nurse approach and force myself back to being stonefaced. I wonder if he saw that, that smile creeping up. I hope he did. I can't lose this imaginary perfect boy, not so soon. I'll try and speak again. Maybe. Tomorrow.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 28, 2011 2:50:59 GMT -5
I drop my hand as the icy voice of a nurse floats to me, "Mr.Saporta, you weren't around for med runs earlier, are we going to have to keep a closer eye on you again?"
I sigh and turn around to face her, for a moment I'd even thought the boy had returned my earlier smile. There's a sarcastic cackling in the back of my mind as the nurse grabs my wrist and pulls me away. "I think we'll just have to send you to your room early tonight, probably have to sedate you unless you're tired."
I don't answer, I do turn and look back, catching just a glimpse of blue before I'm pulled around a corner. They hate blue, they like the color red. They like to see how quickly they can drive me to crashing my head against concrete walls or floors, or how many pills it takes me until I'm vomiting blood onto a bathroom floor. They don't like the usual methods of bleeding, unless you count the times I've had to bite my own arms to get them to shut up.
I barely notice the pin prick of the needle before I don't notice anything. I have hope that tomorrow will better, even as the shadows in my dreams weigh me down.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 3:30:36 GMT -5
They left me alone, shaking from shock, staring after him. The therapists were going to go crazy on me tomorrow. I hadn't spoken, not since my last Christofer had seen me, and they'd given up. It was only one word, I told myself. I'd never live it down though. The doctor's here were even more insane then the patients. They never, ever let go. "Just one word," I told myself. Out loud. Fuck. Two nurses ran towards me. That's when I blacked out.
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Post by Gabe Saporta on Mar 28, 2011 3:42:17 GMT -5
They had to wheel me into therapy the next day, I was too far gone still until at least mid-day. By then they'd left me in the lounge again. I stared through the window at the gray skies, wishing they were blue for awhile. I finally stood up and walked around the room, and down the halls, into the restroom, looking for him.
A different nurse from the day before stopped me and asked what I was doing so far away from the lounge during activity time. I asked if she'd seen you, and she just shook her head as though she thought I was playing. Thinking I'd made someone up, asking me if 'Blue' was a good voice or a bad voice. I just glared at her until she left after pulling me back to the room I'd started in.
The blue chair was taken today, so I sat in the corner by the ocean painting. Trying to imagine that the soft conversations in the back of my mind were just the waves crashing against the shores.
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Post by William Beckett on Mar 28, 2011 4:00:28 GMT -5
They wouldn't let me leave until I spoke. I wanted to find my Christofer, I wanted to hear him again. Just listen. But I couldn't, I couldn't leave. I'd tried to stand and just walk out. They'd tied me to the chair, now. Question after question was fired at me. My lip was bleeding from biting it so hard. The wood of the chair leaned against the bruises from the evening before, the knots rubbing at the scratches on my wrists. "Why did you finally speak?" they asked. "What do you think made you collapse?" "Have you been vomiting again?" "Did you eat yesterday?" It was too much. I screamed as loud as I could- I guess it was just normal speech for anyone else- two words. "Fuck you!" The knots were untied. It was half an hour before I stopped shaking long enough to walk out.
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