Dark Doves

I’m fucked up.

I mean lets be honest here, anyone who comes home after six months away at boarding school to find their mothers decaying corpse propped up in a vintage leather recliner has a right to the title.

Out on the streets there isn’t a lot to keep a curious mind occupied and I often find myself pondering that day so long ago and yet the memories are so fresh it’s like the events only unfolded hours ago.

It’s like a curse inflicted every time I dare try to sleep, a privet movie that screens behind my eyelids on repeat in the back of my mind, torturing me and troubling me with a thousand more questions than answers.

Wordlessly I gazed out at the sea of people that passed the entrance of my narrow alleyway without even glancing my way. I was nothing to them and if they had the faintest idea of what I was then I would mean even less.

Humans are funny things.

After the way I had been treated, chased, I no longer considered myself one of them. Somewhere along the line I had grown cold and silent, a mere shadow of a person; the person I used to be.

I felt alone.

I was an empty shell.

When I didn’t toss and turn in my sleep, when my nightmares receded to the back of my mind, I dreamt of better times filled with the utmost bliss surrounded by my kind and by my kin. But that’s all they were; silly, naïve dreams. They were dead and it was my fault.

I deserved to be alone.