A Journey.

They are yours.

The boat slowly crosses the river, bellowing through the waves. The ferryman rambles on and on. His voice a fleeting whisper that screeches with the deathly, ringing sound of forks on plates. Like a flock of thousands of birds, all singing the same hymn in different notes.

You take a seat as Charon pushes the boat across the river. Feeling as if you’ve lost your ability to stand. The sky is lost in translation, only a dark-pitch-black indistinguishable from when you close your eyes. The water isn’t water, it’s more akin to sand imitating water. The white sand sparkles with the eyes of a thousand dead lovers. Each shift in the tides a breath witheld, a conversation never spoken.

You slowly lean over the edge of the boat, tentatively allowing a hand to feel the fine grains. It feels like a lover’s kiss, a mother’s hug, a father’s yell. It fees like the glare of a teacher holding their disdain for you. Or the annoyance of your crush when she realizes you even had the audacity to imagine yourselves together. A hand grabs you, not with desperation like a drowning man would have. But with a single goal, to make itself known. You’re startled, but you don’t fear being dragged down into its depths. No, you fear the intimacy of it.

You fear having to ask yourself if you enjoy this act, if the feelings that coil within your chest are love or anger. If the soft whisper of affection will shake you, will change you, or will make you act. You fear the change, the movement, you fear the understanding that could arise with being seen.

You look closer at the hand, you see the same distinct marks on it mirroring your own. You act - you move to pull your twin from these depths, but they seem to refuse. Letting go of you as Charon continues his task. As you drift farther away. You look down at your hands and you fear asking the question, of knowing the truth. So you keep them by your side for the remainder of the journey.

Death and Reincarnation.

I’ve died many deaths. I’ve had this thought many times. I’ve had this idea everytime.

I still have no idea what it truly means to die a death, but continue living. But if I could describe what I consider a death. I would say I consider the heart breaks. The realization your parent’s will never change, that their love will remain foreign to you. The deep, blistering, heat that spreads across my chest when I remember all I have done. Those many nights alone, cold, and left to your own thoughts and vices in a hospital, only the constant reminder of the pulse machine to remind you that you are indeed alive. All the times I’ve been broken, and remolded, into something different. Even if it was only slightly. I consider these deaths.

Of course it would be easier to simply recount all the times I could have died and tally up these numbers to my kill count. Or all the times I’ve considered taking my own life, whether by crashing into the highway wall at 120 miles per hour or staring out of the hospital room considering if it’s possible to just jump through the glass window and fall to a very quick death (probably not in hindsight). Or anytime I’ve taken my prescription painkillers and imagined how it would feel to simply down the whole bottle. But those are not truly deaths in my eyes. Because at every turn and point, every thought that blooms in such a way, I come to the realization - “I don’t want to die… yet.”

I have many people who love me now, many people who care for me, many people who think about me, many people who are reminded of me. I have so many people in my life. And I am so grateful for everyone. Distant and close, forgotten and remembered. I really do feel at times that I’ve ‘made it’ socially. There were times where I couldn’t even have a person to bother. Someone to annoy, someone to call. But now I have people like that in my life. And now I feel their hands on my back, big or small pushing me forward. Thank you everyone.

Understanding.

No one will understand me. It’s simply a truth I’ve come to accept. Many people see me, they digest what I say, how I look, what I talk about. They form their notions of me, be it wrong or right. I love hearing what they think anyway. Sometimes It feels like a peer review hearing how others see me. I think that’s why I ask so much. Like a confirmation, a secondary opinion. Even if it’s not correct, it feels good knowing a lot of people see me sort of the same way. I’ve worked so hard to become somewhat likeable. Somewhat cool. Somewhat relatable. Something. I’ve worked so hard to become something. Something other than a pitiful thing that has no idea how to function or be normal. Something that doesn’t even know the concept of hygiene or fashion. Something other than whatever I was when I look at pictures of myself. I worked so fucking hard for this and I’m going to keep working hard. But there remains one truth despite all this. No one will understand me. Not even my ex from an almost year long relationship, not even my parents of 21 years. Not even those I call brother both blood related or not. Not even a therapist. Not even God. No one will understand me, and I will never understand myself. I change too much, I’m so locked away that I’ve distanced ‘myself’ from ‘me’ and ‘self’. I have no concepts of self identity outside of what others think of me because truth be told I simply do not think about myself. I do not think about so many things related to me. I gave up on trying to figure it out. It’s too hard.

But it’s ok. I’m me. I’m here.