Saturday

Too many days I feel like I wake at the bottom of the ocean and have to start swimming at once, because I can't breathe and everything is dark. I swim because I have to, because mostly I don't want to drown. I worry that soon I will wake up and decide not to swim.

I go out too much. I spend time with people I don't know because I can lose myself that way. Conversations that swing from the emphatic to the hilarious, but that edge nervously away from meaningful. I drink too much. I cannot resist the lure of parties, of high energy fun, because I need people to take my mind away from the dark places.

In secret I am terrifed of things I cannot articulate and do not understand. I do not want to understand them because understanding might conjure them out of my mind and make them real.

I am weighed down by unknown demons. I worry that the demons will drive people away from me. I worry that people will assume I want them to save me, although I do not. I am no different to how I have always been.

I want to run away. To go to sleep. To forget these demons that trail behind me and shine glaring lights on my failures so that everyone can see. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want people to feel they must check up on me. I don't want pity or support. I don't want anyone to call me. I don't want anyone.

I want to be alone. I go to parties and late night bars and talk and flirt. People give me telephone numbers even though I know I will never call them. People talk to me because they think I am something, but in fact I am not anything that they would want. I am not what I seem. The way I look means I can pretend to be something I am not. In secret I am desperate for something I cannot identify. I annoy and exasperate my friends because I cannot tell them what I want from myself. I am sorry for constantly disappointing everyone around me.

I don't want people to want to help me. I don't want people to think I want something from them. I am not your responsibility. Do not worry that you should help me, or that I expect anything from you. You do not have to catch me just because I have chosen to fall.

I cannot run even though I want to leave. I wish I had a button to press to open the trapdoor beneath me, so I could fall away and all my demons would die. I wish I was better. I am sorry for not being better. I am sorry for my stupid, self-pitying, embarrassing idiocy. I am sorry for calling, for needing anything, for not being normal, like you. I am sorry for my introspection, for not just growing up like I should. I am sorry for being sorry. I am sorry for making you uncomfortable, for making you feel you must respond. I am sorry for making you think I am asking you for something. I am not, I promise. I will not.