Blood

How did I get here? What did I do? Where do I go from now? This dark place… it’s killing me. How can I escape? I don’t know. I wonder if there is any escape. I’m tortured by these wailing, stabbing thoughts, these persistant cries drilling themselves deeper and deeper into my brain until they infect the blood itself. Hot, sticky hate. These thoughts make my skin crawl, my face flush, my chest tense and my heart pound, sending them pulsing through my veins to the very tips of my toes and back again, revived like the morning sun and just as hot to touch. Her name. He said her name. How can I kiss him when those very same lips have just spoken her name?

Hide it. Bottle it up. Turn it into a cocktail, poison rotting at my arteries until the envy in my blood spills out and consumes every inch of me, right down to my soul. Soon enough, I’ll let it explode. My insides are blistering. He said her name. For years this has gone on. I’ll never forget. Every word is as clear in my ringing ears as the moment they were slurred or spoken. I was always second to her. Living in her long, slender, beautiful shadow. I stood in that shadow as though it were a grave, shallow and cold. The most gorgeous girl in the world. The hottest body. The cutest face. I wonder what it feels like to be so amazing. There’s something so painful about being second best. You feel so close, yet so far away. It's enough to drive you insane. It did it to me. He did it to me. How could he do this to me?

I am disabled, yet I get no parking space and people do not pity me. But they do laugh. People have asked me why I hate “it” so much. Everybody does it. But how could I not hate it? I can never compete with these ideals he sets for me. This isn’t love. I feel so disgusting, like an animal. All I am is a parisite, clinging on, hoping things will change. But they never do, they never do. Screaming and laughing, contaminated sound waves to shatter my body, break my bones, leaving me crumpled in a heap on the floor, shaking, dying. The best I can do is to ignore it and hope to God that the heat doesn't start creeping down my arms when he's near. But he has said her name.

It's as though I become possessed by jealousy, hate and rage. It is a fire which blazes through my body, taking control, trying to escape and taste the air. I know that the moment it reaches my fingertips it will happen. I am too weak... it succeeds. My right hand collides with his face, my left swings up and tears at his hair. There is blood under one of my fingernails. And then the blistering heat is gone, subsided to its internal hiding place. Next comes the screaming.

He says nobody else would ever stay with me… I wonder.