feeling small

i listened to the song and i thought of you. on a whim i picked up the phone and called and you weren't home. he didn't recognise my voice because i'm sick. i had to tell him who was calling. then i sat and played mindless computer games and waited for the phone to ring, singing along to ani and thinking about all the times you've bitched me out about how i don't talk to you. i was going to talk. maybe if i talk i can get it all out of my head where it's driving me crazy. i don't want to sleep but i hate being awake. my pillow scares me. the shadows in my room from when i was seven, the room that has barely changed, they oppress me, press me down into the soft mattress until i can barely breathe and i try to cry out for mercy. but have you forgotten? i can't cry. boots do nothing against the monsters that haunt me. my eyes open wide and i see the faintly lit numbers click off the minutes on my alarm clock. click. twelve thirty. click. twelve thirty-one. click. maybe i should read something. click. they will eat me. click. what's that shadow? click. i like the dark. click. i don't want to turn on the light. click. click. why can't i sleep? click. i want someone to fall asleep with. click. click. click. eventually i drift off and the next morning find myself tangled and sweaty in the blankets as i jerk awake, my legs still paralyzed from sleep, convinced that i have overslept, i have forgotten something. start the day off with an adrenaline rush. rinse and repeat. promise myself i'll work and then feel the leadenness settling back over me and i sit back passive and take it all in until i want to scream get me out of here. talk to me. do something so i know you're there. touch me so i know i'm here. and no one speaks, no one reaches out, and i sit there. immobile. if i don't speak will i someday not be able to? so i resolve to speak. try to speak. and two sentences in i clam up, silent until the next attempt, the screaming intensifying until i can barely hear. if i talked, i would talk to you. but i talk to no one.

and then i call you up on the phone and a few minutes are passed in idle chatter about illness and boys and girls and school and behind it all is what i mean to say but it never comes out.