Poison

Another thing for writer's club. I didn't share this one with the group. It would freak out the teachers. I don't want it to be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. I just don't.

The pain is always here, no matter what I do, no matter how I try to hide from it. The memories whirl by me in an instant splash of colour and noise, and then they’re gone, leaving behind just a dull ache that tugs at my heart, and the inevitable red cuts, slices in a loose cross-hatch, that cover my body.

I hurt. My confused brain can figure out almost nothing more than that it is hurting. Someone hurt me, and now I feel pain. A simple cause-and-effect model, but I just can’t understand it too well. And I can’t model it. It just doesn’t fit into those neat little charts from history class. Simple my ass.

I can feel the pain before it hits me, like the energy brewing before a storm. It starts as a prickly tingling, moving through my neck and ears, chilling me before moving into the core of my head. It chokes me, crushing out every sense of happiness I’ve ever felt, and replacing it with my most painful memories. And then it has me.

It’s like being possessed. Possessed by only my fear, hatred, and helplessness, by my memories of sheer agony. A train rushes through my head, turning off every light of hope that was ever ignited there. I am nowhere, falling through a perpetual hole of my nightmares.

The smells hit me first; sweet and sour odours that I twist my head to avoid by cannot escape from. I writhe, often falling, trying to banish the smells that define my memories before my other senses are captured. My efforts are purely futile; there is no way out. My other senses succumb to the memories until it has me fully in its grasp. The memory surrounds me, until it is more real than reality.

I come out slowly, like a baby being born out of hell, only to find itself in a cold, lonely world. I can feel the pain sinking from my head down into my gut, where it stays. My head grows hot, until I feel like it might combust. And still the pain stays.

I can’t keep the pain as part of me for too long. This kind of pain is too hard. I cut. It starts off as a single mark, then grows into a wild jungle that poisons my skin. But this is a different poison. It’s pain that I can feel. It is real. I can’t hide from it, but it can’t sneak up on me.