Fragile

When I was little, they used to tell us we could do anything. Be anything. They had us write down what we wanted to be when we grew up. Not a single one of us wrote down 'anorexic,' 'self-conscious,' 'depressed.' No one ever thought to put down 'addict,' 'alone,' or 'lost.' No one wanted this to happen.


I woke up, it was 2am, I couldn't sleep again. The world was dream-like, shrouded by a mist. As if I was already gone, looking back at a memory of the living. The night-thoughts came. The whys, the hows, the what-ifs and what-nows. The when-did-this-happens and why-to-mes. 

It's as if one moment we're fine, or as close to it as we'll ever be. And the next, we can't even quite recognize the face in the mirror crying back at us. But in reality, it happens slowly. Second by second, thought by thought, trigger by trigger. It happens slowly, until it's too late to be reversed.


Then one day you wake up and ask why. Why, tell me, does every sharp object entice me to open myself? Why do I glare at every piece of food, as if I can intimidate away the calories. Where did all these scars and dreams come from? Have I fallen asleep, and unknowingly wandered to a different depth of hell?

We're all fragile flames, hovering in a vast darkness that is life. I don't know how, or when, or why, but somehow a light breeze drifted across my atmosphere, and extinguished me. Somehow I became what I swore I'd never become. 


No one asks us about the future anymore. Perhaps they know we're too far gone to be saved.