For hours I stay still in the middle of the street.
Sitting on the ground. My cloak drenched and weighted down by water, cold seeping through my body, it doesn't hurt, but the way my small fingertips redden tells me it should.
Still. I don't move.
I stay still, in the middle of a desolate road. The sky darkening above me. The rain not stopping, nay, it intensify, it grows, covering me in rain, digging through the holes where my skin can be seen and splashing on it. Making sure that if I don't hunch myself in my cloak and hide myself deep into it's comfortable cocoon I will feel the cold warmth of the world.
For hours. To be honest, I doubt it's been hours, I can't stay still for hours. I don't think I'm that unstable, but it sure feels like it's been hours since I first let my back lay against the wooden wall behind me.
It sure feels like it's been hours since I've been staring at the rain falls on the edge of my clothes, the little inclined roof above me not covering everything.
It definetly feels like it.
I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know what to do with my legs. I feel horrible. It feels disgusting.
My vision sharpen on the exit of the alley. On my left, on the drenched and destroyed book still hanging on the ground.
I barely gave it a glance since they left.
It's been so long since they left. Since I'm safe, since I did this fucking magical invisible stuff.
It's been a long time.
But my heart hasn't stopped beating.
It's still there. An insistent beat, like a drum, badum badum badum, right there in my chest, begging, screaming, raging for attention, making the sound of the rain muffled and dull over the terribly loud sound of my heartbeat beating through my ears.
I don't care about those kids. That's why I barely glanced at this alley.
I don't care. I don't fucking care about them, it's kids, teenagers, yeah I guess they could kidnap me, easily kill me with a bad swing or raging hormones, I guess they could.
But I don't care.
I don't fucking care about them, I don't care about this little chase turned hide and seek we had. Do you think I care? Do you think I would care? Do you really think I would care about those pathetic piece of shit!? I don't care, I don't care, and I'm not lying to myself, no matter how weird it sound.
Proof is my heartbeat. It didn't stop, and it's not about to stop.
My fingers are shaking. And they aren't about to stop, don't even dare to tell me it's because I'm cold.
I'm not.
My hand comes up to feel my soft skin, the soft skin of my face, soft, umblemshed and weak.
Am I overreacting? Am I a bitch for overreacting like this?
There are some people that gets tortured, raped, abused, crushed, lose their entire livelihood, lose their entire family, everything, so many people lived through worse. So why am I acting like this? Do I think I can react like this? For what? A feeling!?
A disgusting feeling that makes my fingers shake, my mind a mess, and my heartbeat unable to calm down? That's, that's fucking RIDICULOUS!
Get up, do something. Why the fuck am I sitting there like some kind of abused dog!?
What is happening to me?
I slide one of my leg closer to me, the sole sliding on the ground until my knee rest on my chest.
My eyes focus on it. On the way my arms drop down on the wet ground around me, limp and unwilling to move, the shaking in my fingertips the only proof of what I'm feeling.
What am I feeling you ask?
I FEEL LIKE SHIT! That's how I feel like! And again, that's not because of those fucking kids, no, this isn't about the chase, the cold, it's about what it means.
It's about what made me hyperventilate the first time, before I even noticed they were here. And it's about the meaning behind the actions.
The actions themselves I could care less.
LESS YOU HEAR ME!?
I'm sure I would have reacted the same if I seen my house, if I saw my mother trying to scourge something in the deepest end of our cupboards to cook something for me.
I'm sure a sight that common could send me spiraling.
A little chase with kids is nothing. It's the meaning behind this fucking chase.
It's something deep. Something that claws inside of me, it's, IT'S SHIT! IT'S FUCKING SHIT!
LIfting my hands up and putting them on my head, again, I feel like a dumb exaggerating kid. What am I doing? There, in the middle of the street, sitting, drenched, what am I doing there!? I've tortured myself for two years, two fucking years, why am I acting like a kid now!?
This makes no sense. It makes no fucking sense.
I've been torturing myself, I've been mutilating myself to figure out if my pain was normal or not like some kind of perverse scientist, I didn't even react when my mother started to prostitute herself for a penny, nor did I react when my father started beating her up or dragging me around like I'm some kind of dirty sock, and now, NOW!
Now I'm reacting?
Now I'm reacting? For what? For what!? Why am I reacting!?
I shove myself up. A surge of indignation rising through me, my knees buckle for a second as I see the street around me.
The...people that must live in those houses. Those people that...shun me? Am I shunned? Can it be considered shunned? Am I in danger? Are they going to kill me? Sacrifice me? Rip me apart? Take advantage of me? Use me for their disgusting ideas? Throw me in the way of an enemy soldier to gain a chance to live? Why am I thinking about this?
I don't care. I HAVEN'T BEEN CARING SINCE I WAS BORN, WHY NOW!? WHY RANDOMLY NOW!?
My hand drags on the wall behind me, wet water making my palm slide down, almost making me fall down on the ground as if I was drunk. But I'm not drunk, I'm not, so even if I see in double vision, I keep my footing.
Eyes on my destroyed book.
This book. This fucking book. The symbol of what I feel.
My face scrunches up in an ugly grimace, an ugly grimace that shouldn't have it's place on a kid.
This fucking book. This fucking lack of knowledge of mine, this inability to know where I am, this inability to know the world around me, this pathetic little hope gained from this same lack of knowledge, this FUCKING disgusting and FILTHY hope, this disgusting and horrible hope, this thought that run around in my mind and singlehandedly kept me alive for two years in my personal new hell hole, THIS DISG-!
I take a deep breath, the way it comes in, shuddering, disgusts me again. So weak, so patheticly weak.
WHY DO I EVEN CARE!?
What's my problem? What's my problem? Can't I handle a bit of uncertainty!?
No, no I can. Whenever I wake up it's a coin flip between if I'll get some food to fuel my growing limbs, it's a coin flip if I'll find my father in the morning, it's a coin flip if someone outside finally decide to take advantage of the only kid in town, it's a coin flip if I'll get kidnapped and used as a child soldier like the others.
I deal with uncertainty everyday.
I deal with it, I fight against it. I'm ALWAYS uncertain of every single outcome.
I can DEAL with uncertainty, I always did!
So why...why is the familiar feeling of hunger gnawing in my guts is making my heart beat faster? Why does the street around me feels oppressive and strangling, why do I want to hide in a hole and crawl away? Why the thought of seeing my father makes me twitchy and aggressive? Why do I want to rip my grandfather from the inside out before he can touch me and my family again?
That's...that doesn't make sense.
IT NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE! I CAN DEAL WITH UNCERTAINTY, I CAN DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS, I CAN DO IT!
So why? WHY!?
If any of those nightmare scenarios happen, so what? SO WHAT!? What's the worse that can happen? I'll get tortured? Abused? I'll die?
GREAT! LIKE ALWAYS THEN!
I can do the FUCKING same as always and just die, it's fine, so WHY are my hands shaking!?
Both of my hands, both of my palms are in front of me, I'm staring at them. At the tremors running through them. All while disgust and a mix of feelings run through me like a truck.
Why? Why can't I stop shaking?
I've been doing everything perfectly.
My hands shake harder.
Perfectly, I have the strongest defense, no one can hurt me, NOTHING can hurt me!
NOTHING CAN HURT ME!
I dig my nails into my palm, forming weak little shaking fists.
If I don't care about life. Nothing can hurt me.
My fists are shaking, trembling, I dig deeper into my skin, feeling my pathetic strength, forming the strongest fists I can.
So why? Why? Tell me WHY!
Why do I want to live?