My window

As I sit looking out of my window I remember so much. I can’t talk of these things but seeing my eyes reflected in the rain - darkened glass, I am forced to remember. Joy was there too, she saw and she remembered and she is well. Why am I the only one not wanting to think, to suffer, to relive. Is it a failing or a safety –mechanism, shutting away the outside world cushions the guilt, the pain, and the suffering.



My mind twists and turns and replays that day over and over, like a tape on a loop. The visions pass my eyes and the sounds assault my ears. The rush of colour and the high pitched squeals. What caused that, i am not sure now, but I can still hear it. Too many people, too crowded. Too many voices in my head. Sensory overload, the smells and tastes still there, hot tar and sweet summer air. A smell I can’t identify. What was it? That torments me, not knowing. I can’t close my eyes and make it go away, doing that makes the visions more vivid. I am almost able to reach out and touch the day with my eyes shut tight. It’s all in my head. I can’t shake it away, not today, not ever.


What starts as a normal day cannot be forecasted to become a living hell can it? Am I still living? Is this living? If it’s living, then what is death? Would I like it better ? Is it any different than this? Too much rolling around and unravelling. A thread leads me away, and I feel I am reaching the surface like a high diver resurfacing after an Olympic dive, but then that thread turns into a steel bond and drags me back again. Kicking and screaming, in utter silence.


It’s better this way, I can’t talk about it to anyone and the longer I don’t talk the more I can’t talk. A vicious circle of self-contempt leads me further into silence. Deeper down the path of self –destruction. You see I don’t need therapy. I don’t need analysing. I know it already.


The darkest days are best. The rain washing away some of the memories. I can replay the tape and yet my eyes don’t see it. If I stare out of my window. I only see glimpses of that day behind the glass. Blurred and water - streaked. I never know if that’s the cold, wind-blown rain or more my own water - streaked memories. Tears seldom fall anymore. Those tears were for me no-one else. Self-pity. It keeps me locked in here. In my mind. Alone, with the voices and the visions.


I have moved from place to place. Treatment after treatment and still they say I am unresponsive. What response do they need! What will they do with any response I can make. Will they laugh and rejoice that I have told all. No, they cannot be happy with what I would say. Will it return the day, make it go away. Time travel, no it can’t happen. If we could go back I would be the first.


I know. I am alive in here. I just cannot bring myself to the surface to tell them what happened was no accident. I wanted it to happen. I thought I would be free, instead I am locked in here, this dark cavern of replayed misery. I am not free. I am accountable to me and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be judge and jury, with myself as the accused. Locked into this never-ending cycle of flashes of guilt. He is gone. He hurt me and now he is gone. He will hurt no more. It is over for him and for them. Only I still feel his words like steel edged knives cutting and searing at the same time. He is free while I sit and slowly die.


They all think I have lost my mind. Prise me into clothes that are not mine.


Feed me food I decline.


Medicate me, with useless drugs.


I will not speak, I will not respond.


I am locked inside my mind.


And here I sit day after day, staring out of my window.

Thanks to Lisa Reinbolt for the first line ....