Choked with confusion and blanketed by the dark around me, I reach blindly, madly, for my lamp, suddenly terrified of my inability to see what might be creeping up on me in my darkened room.
Heart pounding and breathing deeply, I finally located my bedside light and flicked it on with trembling fingers.
The room is bathed with warm and revealing light. Light that wraps itself around me comfortingly as I clutch my covers with sweaty hands.
Just a dream. Nothing more than a dream. There's nothing here.
Despite my comforting thoughts, I am still not at ease. It wasn't a dream that woke me. Even in the unconciousness of my sleep I could feel it tugging on my heart maliciously.
It was a dream.
Firmly I shake down my doubts and slip in the the clutches of my old friend denial. I know perfectly well that I had no dreams that night, but I don't want to dwell on it just then. Perhaps in the morning. Perhaps never.
Why the denial? Because deep down inside I know what woke me up. I know what was tugging on my heart to reveal my covered up emptyness.
I can't share it with anyone, not even the closest of my friends or my family. I can't bring myself to talk about it because even the thought of it brings unwanted tears to my eyes.
I refuse to cry. No one has ever seen me shed a single tear and I plan on keeping it that way for as long as I possibly can.
I had a bad dream, that's all. There's nothing here, I can go back to sleep.
Releasing the covers from my tight grasp, I turn the light off with a steady hand and settle by body back down onto the soft and inviting matress of my bed.
Sleep comes quickly.
I can't tell them because I don't know how. The words I need to convey the truth are hidden inside me, locked away by my denial.
I can't tell them because I know I will cry. The last thing that I want to do is break down in tears in front of my mother or my best friend.
The would understand, I'm sure, but by admitting this harsh truth I would be destroying part of the identity that I have worked so hard to build. I like the person that I am and I don't want to have to change into something that I don't want to be.
I don't want to admit weakness.
The darkness is pressed up against my body again, but this time I was not awoken by a dream. This night I have not slept at all. My eyes have remained locked on a point in the darkness for hours and my mind has been working fiercly. For the first time things are becoming clear.
I am not as comfortable with my friends as I previously thought, not even the ones I formerly thought knew everything about me. If they did, and if I wre comfortable with them, then I would be able to cry in front of them without worry or fear. I would be able to admit what is torturing my soul.
But, for once I am afraid to tell them somthing. I - the strong one, the fearless one - fear telling my own friends, all trustworthy people, the one thing that currently ails me. The one thing that is bringing me down.
This sudden fear of my own friends further supports this hideous truth about myself that I have tried so hard to hide from the world's prying eyes.
I say that I don't care and brush it away, living my life for the future more often than for the moment. And people admire me for that... They don't know. They will never know.
Despite the warm blankets I have wrapped around myself, I feel so cold, so bone deep cold, and I begin to shiver. Unconsciously I roll over and curl up into a fetal position, hugging my knees close to my chest.
I can't let myself dwell on it like this. I have to follow my own philosophy and tell myself that it doesn't matter. Get over it. I only have so long to live and I have to make the most of it.
My mind seizes these words desparately wit a vice like grip and will not let them go. They are my release. Don't worry, just live.
But first, sleep.
So I took my own advice and lived. I enjoyed life and didn't dwell on anything. But it was a life very different from the one I had known before I finally understood what my heart was crying out for.
Everyday is racked with pain over not being able to seek reassurance from my friends.
Dammit! Dammit all! Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn't I just go on living my old, cheerful life where I was ignorant to this need inside of me?
And why can't I tell anyone?
That question is simple enough to answer. I have to be strong. That's what people know me as. That's how they recognize me.
Not even those that can read me like a book cannot see it because I mask it so well. They must never know. It's too embarrassing.
Carpe diem, I constantly remind myself. Seize the day. You've got a wonderful life stretched out ahead of you and so little time to experience it. Forget about what brings you down. Forget about it for the sake of experience.
But, as I would find out in the many sleepless nights to come, I could not forget.
Tonight, writing does not help me release my pent up feelings, it merely intensifies them. How much longer can I go on like this?
In a fit of anger I hurl my pen across the rom and watch as it rebounds off of a wall and drops harmlessly to the carpeted floor.
Poor thing. It didn't deserve that. Hugging my pillow tightly, these thoughts bombard my mind. What a strange person I am, pitying a pen.
But what's even stranger is my inability to overcome this... this... longing?truth?feeling? I've mastered far worse feelings before, far worse fears, yet this one will not let itself be conquered.
I'm running out of options.
How many nights have passed since the last one where I could think clearly? I'm not sure. I've been living my days in an impenetrable haze. A fog so thick that I cannot even see the passage of time. My movements have become automatic and robotic. It's like living in a very bad dream.
My friends know something is wrong. They can sense my unhappiness. But they don't know what is causeing it. They will never guess what it is and I will never tell them.
They are getting frustrated.
I have bypassed frustration in my quest to rid myself of this ugly truth.
Now, more and more often, I find myself succumbing to it, longing for my thirst to be quenched.
The temptation to tell them is so great that I can hardly resist it. But the tears that burn in the corners of my eyes are a bitter reminder that I must not tell them. I must not show weakness.
I am an athlete. My opponents fear me. If I let this feeling defeat me, then I'll lose my edge.
I'm a warrior, crusading for change on this prejudiced Earth, rebelling against the biased minds that hold me back from becoming the person that I want to be. If I let my fears rule, I will never win another battle.
The darkness used to relax me. Then it smothered me. Now it compliments how I feel.
Black. Empty. Lonely.
I am alone. The one thing I want more than anything is someone who will hold me. Someone I am not afraid to cry in front of. Someone who I will never hesitate to share my fears with.
But I have friends. I can't be alone.
Oh yes I can. Not even those who know virutally everything about me, not even they know this. I am afraid to tell lthem. I am afraid to cry in front of them.
I am alone.
Enveloped by the darkness of the world that I used to believe in, I long for a warm, strong body to press myself against. I don't believe that I will ever find that body because I have to declared to my friends so many times that I don't care about having a relationship or being lonely or anthing like that. I have stated several times that I will never marry because I don't want to be "tied down." I want freedom, not love.
But the question is, do I want a deep friendship with a deeper trust more than I want that freedom?
Alone in my bedroom during the early morning hourse of a humid summer night, I bury my face into my pillow and being to sob. I am torn between what I have said and what I want. There is no one to comfort me, and because I am stubborn, there never will be.