Empty Spaces

This past month (or perhaps longer; I can't remember anymore) has been miserable. I don't know if it's something in the air, or perhaps just an effect of the heat, but all happiness seems to have been sapped away from everywhere I've gone. It's like I walk into a room, and all the happiness vanishes, both at school and at home, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong anymore.

The emptiness started at school with a fight between a close friend and I. I don't think the wounds ever really healed from that fight; everything's seemed so distant since then, so tense. Even if there is a day where there is happiness, it is followed by a day of pain and anger, and it doesn't help that we're in every single class together. I want to make things work, I really do, but something's wrong in my head, and I don't know what it is anymore; I can't put a name to it.

I haven't been able to sleep well in weeks; I fall asleep easily enough, but the sleep doesn't rest me, and I wake up just as tired as I was when I went to sleep. All the dreams I've had over this month have either been nightmares of death and slaughter, or shapeless things of pure color and sound. Which isn't to say that my imagination's been asleep, oh no. All the vividness of imagination is expressing itself in the day now, calling to my attention horrible images in my mind of death and disappearing, of cracked masks and empty husks. The one that's still dancing in the back of the mind runs as follows.

I am strapped on my back to a stone table in the woods by bands of what I think are sheer willpower, for there are no visible bonds, and I can't even think about escaping. And I'm slowly disappearing. My flesh is vanishing in little inch-wide rings, but there is no blood or pain; it is just like I never existed. Once the disappearance has reached mid-calf, my bones follow the flesh's example, disappearing in the same way. And once all traces of my body have vanished, all that is left is my mind, my psyche, my soul, if you will. But that is not the end, oh no. A figure appears now, a blurred, shapeless shade of shifting gray, holding a fabric cloth usually used to wipe off a chalkboard, and slowly takes the eraser to my mind, wiping me all away as if I was just some mess on the counter. And, as I finally disappear, I can't shake the feeling that I deserve it.

See what I mean? And that's not all, no. There are many more, some involving death, some involving a cracked human mask falling away to reveal nothingness within. Richard Thompson summed it up best in his song "Uninhabited Man" with the following: "There is no me within the skin." I feel empty, devoid of anything that would define me as human.

And the feeling doesn't stop at school, either. The emptiness follows me home, too, like some monstrous dog clinging onto my heels. I feel pressured, and I feel like all I am doing is just failing on every single count, in every single aspect. I try to talk about it, but I never can get past the thinking phase of communication; I just chicken out right before I'm about to say anything. And, as a result, I can't get these thoughts out of my head, can't really express what I'm thinking about, and everything else in life is suffering because of it. I'm shorter of temper, and I space out more now, and I hate that feeling of not being at my best. It makes me feel sick inside, this feeling of being inadequate and unable to complete the tasks set for me. The pressures of summer and summer jobs isn't helping, either, especially when my subconscious is trying its hardest to convince me that I'm a failure in the deepest sense of the word.

So, yes, if anyone's been wondering why I've been a bit off lately, this is why. I'm off to listen to "Where is My Mind?" by The Pixies; I think it fits for the occasion.