Fight or Flight

My house, there’s nothing special about it besides the sheer availability of exclusion it provides; which might be cool, if I weren’t in high school. That little house in the burbs every parent dreams of, it has access to the big city but all the little city charms, well that’s 30 minutes closer to the big city then I am. 30 minutes closer to any city. Considering my friends need to drive the walking distances between each other’s houses, I’d need a jet to get any of them down here. Living here means an hour and a half on the bus to school, and an hour and a half on the way back. It means I see my friends at school, maybe see them a weekend out of every month, and it means I have a lot of time to think. A lot of time to think.

Another key part of living in the middle of nowhere is a total dependence on the internet. Facebook, myspace, anything that means a connection with the outside world. I mean, I’m not one of those guys that puts a status update every ten minutes, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend a good hour a night creeping through all of my “friends” little status’s, profiles, and pictures. Because if you can’t have real human contact, then I guess words and little smiley faces are the next best thing.

Sitting here, on the computer, I can see a load of homework I’m supposed to be doing, only I can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried, the same thing happens every time.

Step 1: Open a Math book.

Step 2: Copy down a problem.

Step 3: Look at the problem.

Step 4: Realize I have no clue what to do.

Step 5: Check the notes.

Step 6: Realize that I take shitty notes,

Step 7: Throw math book.

Step 8: Lie down and try not to think. I’m not great at not thinking.

Alcoholics anonymous has 12 steps to sobriety, the bible has 10 commandments to salvation; I have 8 steps to failure.

It’s not just Math: English, History, Chemistry, even my fucking art class. It’s always the same story. My brain just gives me this list of consequences if I can’t do the homework, and then it tells me I can’t. Like,

“If you don’t do this you’ll fail math. If you fail math you don’t graduate. If you don’t graduate you’ll get a crappy job, which means a crappy apartment, which means you won’t ever get married or have kids which means you’ll die alone and miserable.” And then it tells me,

“You can’t do this, you’re too stupid, you’re too fat, you’re too ugly, just admit it. Some people are just meant to fail. You’re meant to fail.”

And then my heart starts to race, my brain can’t focus, sometimes it even builds up till I’m dizzy, till I puke. It makes my hand cramp up or shake, it makes me angry, it makes me quit, it makes me give up and go to bed.

So I don’t even try anymore, it’s just like, what’s the point? I just wake up a half hour early and bullshit anything I might have to do on the computer and I get the rest of my homework. I do anything for 3rd period in 1st period, everything for 5th period in 3rd period, etc.

I can hear my phone vibrates from across the room. I try to resist the temptation to check it, because I know it won’t be who I want it to be, but, like always, I just think about trying to not think about it until I have no choice but to check it. It never is actually the person you want to talk to, just whoever wants to talk to you.

“Marsha: Hey buddy! Whatsup?” The phone displays brightly in the dark room.

God damnit.

“Hey, not much, you?” I reply. I hate talking to Marsha, she’s just that ex-girlfriend that wants to stay friends; which would be awesome if talking to her didn’t make me feel so guilty, but it does. It’s like, I dumped her, she should hate me. I want her to hate me. But all she ever does is say all this nice stuff about me, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me want to say nice stuff back, which makes me guiltier because I don’t really like her anymore. My phone buzzes.

“Marsha: Same, just thinking about you! :D” the phone tells me she said.

“Oh, that’s cool.” I type out. My plan is to give her as little to actually respond to as possible, so she doesn’t even want to talk to me. I think I either need to text someone else, or just turn my phone off. But ignoring her would make me even more guilty.

“Banana Hammock!” I type out, as it’s the weirdest, most random thing I can think of and I know she likes that kind of shit. I hit SEND and find her name on the list of contacts, you know, not Marsha, but the girl that I wish would actually text me.

Almost immediately my phone buzzes in my hand. “Delilah: Haha, WTF?” the screen reads. I put the phone down and start doing push ups. 1…2…3… all the way to twenty; because it’s just too pathetic for me to reply immediately. I don’t care with Marsha, but this is different.

“Oh, you know, I know how you love to hear about my outfits!” I type, “So whatsup?” When I tell it to send, it says have another message.

“Marsha: Are you okay?” God damnit; really!? Is it really that fucking obvious? I don’t bother replying, fuck my guilt, it’s worth it. My phone vibrates.

I walk to the kitchen and get a glass of water, I drink it, and then I refill it before returning to my room. All because I don’t want to look like I’m sitting there waiting for her to text me back, which I am.

“Delilah: With Mark, he’s being a dick and won’t keep his hands off me!” It reads. I gag, and if I actually heard her say it I would probably puke. To Delilah, I’m pretty much just an emotion tampon. Something to dump all that nasty stuff that builds up some times into, just in my case it’s tears instead gross vagina blood. To me, Delilah is what I think of when somebody says love; not to say I’m in love with her, but hell, it’s all I’ve got.

Mark is the douchebag piece of shit that always makes Delilah need to use me as an emotional tampon, the same asshole that she always finds some excuse to go back to. “but he’s just so cute! He makes me laugh! He cheers me up!” Fuck you. I do that shit the same way, except more often and better. I swear to god it’s like she thinks I’m dickless and gay.

“Then fucking punch him.” I type back.

It’s times like these that make me wish I could just die. Like not, “Fuck I don’t want to go to Chemistry!” wishes, more like, “How could I make my suicide look like an accident?” kind of wishes. I mean the wishes that should probably scare me; except for that fact that I’m wishing them kind of means I’m beyond fearing for myself.

It’s like, looking ahead, I really don’t see things getting any better. I know I’m just a stupid overdramatic prima dona, but it seems like my entire life will just cycle around this sort of general unhappiness.

You’re supposed to see yourself married with kids, and I can see that happening, but it’s not right. I imagine myself married to someone, but I’m as boring and awkward as ever, and she’s just not satisfied. So she cheats. I imagine myself catching her, and forgiving her as long as she promises never to cheat again. I imagine myself knowing she’s still cheating, but pretending she’s not, working over time to support her. I imagine my wife getting pregnant, but not with my kid. I imagine myself letting her tell me it’s my baby even though we haven’t had sex in over a year, I imagine raising the little bundle of adultery. I imagine that she isn’t guilty, but I am; I imagine myself putting the blame on myself for her cheating. I imagine the guilt that I’m probably raising this kid out of spite and hatred and self loathing, I imagine trying my hardest but never feeling it’s enough. I stop imagining.

It’s stuff like that, that makes me want to kill myself. It just feels like I’m falling deeper and deeper into a pit of misery, and the only thing I can do is shoot myself while I have the strength.

“Delilah: You know, I can’t do that! Ugh, sometimes I just want to run away.” My phone reads as it lights up.

I think you can do it, just suckerpunch him in the balls like you’ve done to me so many time emotionally.

It’s not like you really think something’s wrong with you the first time you consider killing yourself. I set the phone down. It really feels like something that everyone probably thinks about, it just comes on so naturally. It’s only once the idea really nestles itself into your head as an option that you even dare consider the word suicidal. But by then it’s too late. It didn’t really dawn on me that maybe I needed help when I was planning my future around it. “ I have to do this before I kill myself…” Stuff like that. Or when I was deciding my career choice and thought, “Well I could always try to be an artist, and if it doesn’t work out I’ll just kill myself.” Like to be honest, I was only the least bit concerned with my likelihood for suicide when I realized just how calm these thoughts were. It really dawned that something was wrong when I could just sit, staring at the sunset, and think about just how much simpler it would be if I wasn’t around. I don’t know, it just seems like it should be something to turn to in desperation, not an inner curiosity that surfaces every time you have a chance to think.

I look at the text from Delilah… Just run away. Fuck it.

“Fine then, let’s do it.” I text back. Almost immediately my phone buzzes again.

“Delilah: What do you mean?” It reads.

“Just call me when the stupid piece of shit isn’t there.”