The Unknown Soldier

Some people arent good at showing their feelings, some people arent good saying what they really want say. I guess i’m a little bit of both. Its destroyed me at times, and others it has saved me, but it doesnt matter, because thats past tense. This is now. I dont know what to do, I wish I did, I wish it could be so easy like some people make it look. It makes me squirm just thinking about it. But you know what makes me squirm even more? What keeps me awake at night, prying my mind open. Lonliness, I’ve lived with it like a brother, even when I have people around me it still never made me feel whole. Maybe once in my life ive felt complete like that, but no more. It infects you like a virus, it starts slow and you only feel it slightly, when your totally alone. Then it increases slowly over time, you start to think things that you never thought of before, will I be alone forever? Is there someone for me? Is this worth living? It never stops. I live with it everyday, a demon scraping at my soul, eating me from the inside out. Theres only one way to get the demon out of my me, her. Shes the only way. Shes the only one who can cure my disease and rid me of my burden. The demon can only claw so long, then, then it gets loose.

I havent always been like this, a ghost. You know, the guy who lives with his blinds perminently shut, the person who doesnt eat to punish himself for not being someone better. I was a happy go lucky kid, and I had alot of friends. Everyone seemed to like me, I was kind to all and listened to everyone, no matter what anyone looked like or said. But later, they couldnt do it in return. I started gaining weight, not much, just a little, and i noticed them. I saw them staring at me, all of them. Staring. They saw, they saw it a great big spectacle, a circus, thats what I was becoming. I could see it in their eyes, theyre expression and their voice. I was no longer myself at that point, I was something less. When I went to middle school, it only got worse. Alot worse. People ridiculed me, and made fun of me because I was fat. They screamed words like “Hey Fatty” and laughed when my expression turned to frown. They enjoyed my pain, they loved, they basked in it. Not only did they call me Fatty, but they called me Ugly. They called me everything, nothing was sacred with me, I was free ground for everything, not even the sweetest of kids would hold back when everyone started. Like an orchestra they shouted, tearing into mind, they wrought such pain inside me, that all I could do was bury it deep in my soul. Hoping it would go away if I tried to forget about it. Day in and day out, I dealt with it. The jokes, the ridicule, people looking and laughing at me. Everyone looking and laughing at me. No one would take my side, no one would rise up and speak out against them. I was alone, and then, I realized I was always alone. Walking from to class to class was harder than you could ever imagine, I looked at the tile and hoped that I could slip by unoticed by people, become one of the crowd. I would purposely move with groups of people so I wouldnt be seen. I would never walk out alone if I didnt have to, because I was vulnerable. Sitting in class made me feel like nothing I could I describe. It was if the whole world was looking at me, staring at me, watching my pudgy features and and waiting for me to give a wrong answer or do something stupid. I swear they could see right through me, into my beating heart, they could read my thoughts and laugh at my pitiful nature. I never answered questions because I feared to speak out, afraid someone would make fun of me if my voice cracked or if it was a wrong answer. I wouldnt look at anyone in the eyes. I felt i wasnt worthy, and im not. Im scum.

I have friends, but not many, and some have left and some come over the years. But they all have done one thing. They have called me fat. Not even my friends could spare that for me. They had to bring it home, like a hammer splitting my skull. They would joke about it, if we were playing and I would get out of breath, they would laugh at me, huffing and puffing feeling as if I was going to die. We would play baseball and I would never seem to run the bases fast enough, they would always blame losing on me. Everything was always blamed on me. I was the trashcan, anything that was bad and needed a scapegoat was attached to me, I was easy to target, I never protested. I learned that resistance was futile, you just take it and bury the pain like a hatchet, and move on. When I was younger, none of this really affected me, I could play it off, I had a deep grave to bury it, 6 feet of it. I could just cast it down and it wouldnt even stick out into the light. I would temporarily feel bad, but then the next day it would be gone, like a bad dream. and then it would happen again, and I would bury it, a cycle that never ends. But one day, the grave started filling up and I could see all that was in it. All the dark things, all the pain. And ive never been the same.

If there is one thing that can hurt me like no other, its women. I would see all these movies, where two people would fall in love and have a great life together and die in each others arms. It seemed wonderful to be in love, it was all I ever wanted. But reality is, I never found it. I started to notice women in middle school. And just like everyone else, they made fun of me. But they were worse than the boys, they were far worse. Some people would know when they went too far, when I would cry infront of everyone, but the girls, they wouldnt stop. They drive me into the ground like a drill, spinning my agony into a noose they could hang me in. Then the would laugh and go about their buisness. But I never hated them, I always thought that someone would be different, there would be that girl like in the movies, the person who would help me pick up my books when they fell and smile at me, not stare into my soul. I waited and I waited, but nothing ever happend. Everyone was the same. I learned that life wasnt like the movies, not everyone had a soulmate, they lied. There were people who died alone, there were old men rotting in their houses with dried tears on their faces. Wrinkled hands that never been held. Lips that had never been kissed, and never would. I would be one of those people, one of those old men. Who would live on, empty. They would roam the earth in search of something they could never find. I lied when I said I never hated anyone, I hate myself.

My parents werent much help either. They were always fighting, I could hear them after one of them tucked me in. Screaming, saying how they hated each other. I would hear something break, and then more screaming. Sometimes I could make it out. “Its your fault hes not doing in school” I would hear them say. “Its your side of the family that makes him weak” I could hear like yesterday. “Why do you let him eat so much.” was another one. There was more, but if I wrote them you would never believe me. And the worst part was, they would never admit it. When I would come downstairs they would smile at me, and say nothing was wrong, they would never mention any of those things around me. I never knew the truth, I coudl only hear it in my bedroom. They didnt know I listened if they did, they might have stopped, but I doubt it. My mother would tell me that I looked handsome and that I wasnt fat, but she was lying, she lied to me, to my face. I could see it in her eyes, they would get hollow as if she had to detach herself to say it, and I would nod as if I believed her, but I never did, and she knew it. I would go to bed and stare at the ceiling, and think. Think like no child should ever, ever have to think. If I had one wish on this earth, I would wish that no one would ever have to think I like I do. I would review everything ive ever done, and see the weaknesses pointed out to me, and no matter how hard I tried to block it out, it would flash there, like a neon sign, I would see what I did wrong, and I couldnt make it go away. I would relive it a thousand a times a night, and feel the same pain each time. There was nothing I could do it scream at me saying that I was a failure and that I could do nothing and I squirm and pray to god to make it stop, I prayed that I would do anything to make it stop, but not even god would listen. I would feel the pain rip through my flesh and work its way to my heart and squeeze it, untill it begged for utter mercy. Over and over this would happen, and all I could do was cry, I would cry for hours and no one would ever hear me. I would cry alone.

And now, my grave has been filled, there is no more room to cast my pain down, its surfacing like lava coming from inside the earth, it bubbles up onto my skin and pours down slow burning my flesh, I can feel it ripping through my organs pouring out my eyes, and my ears and my nose, like blood it flows out of me leaving a trail of my past. There is no room to take the pain, there is too much, not worth anything. I would say try and imagine it for yourself, but I wouldnt do that to anyone except myself. If I hadnt been a failure all my life, I could have amounted to something. If I just hadnt been born, if I had been a stillborn, rotting in a trashcan somewhere, I would have never brought my worthless self upon this earth. I never would have had to step foot in anyplace and disgrace it with my presence. I dont want to die and old man who has never had anything. And I know that this girl would never like me. Girls dont like failures. Its my fault im this way. I made myself fat. I made myself the way I am. I dont blame the kids for doing it, they only pointed it out. The weak dont deserve to live, and that is me. The weak. If I go to hell tonight, I will be relieved, because this world, is so much worse.