By this point I wasn't even sure how many times the song had replayed itself. My thoughts louder than any beating drum or encompassing piano, churning, broiling, chasing in spirals going ever deeper into the recesses of my mind. The deepest, darkest thoughts and memories I wished would stay hidden, the ones I tried so hard to put up a front for. The secrets that need to be talked about, the damage they inflicted and the hurt, oh god the absolute hurt and the hate, all consuming and suppressed, compressed and compacted so tightly with nowhere to go.
One thought stood predominant, as always, that one forgiving, hopeful thought mercilessly crushed and mocked whenever it sparked. I need help. Truthfully, I always needed help, but where to go for it and how to get it and who to get it from always eluded me. So it sits and fills me with a bitter sense of hopelessness when the thought itself instils hope as I think of all the people I could ask for it, but they all have their own problems to deal with and mine are so old and rooted in they may never be hacked out.
Numbness is all I feel, a warm numbness. This is only a layer, a false and weak layer carefully placed and tended to, to fool those I know into thinking I'm fine. I smile and laugh as if nothing is wrong, have fun and mess around as if when I go home I don't drown myself in my music to hold back the thoughts that sometimes permeate through anyway, and stop smiling and laughing and being alive.
I need help. People often tell me. I'm crazy, I'm messed up, I'm insane… I deny it and laugh but I am… Just not in the way you mean, in a darker sense, the real sense. It's thinly veiled and just held back but if any care to dig a little deeper it rears its ugly head and shows itself. But you can't handle that; it frightens you, makes you wary and makes you turn away. So I leave before it happens but I can see it, feel it, when you find out it changes you.
Help me, please. All I need is help. Let me say it and not get mocked. Let me say it and not get taken as a joke. Let me cry instead of cramming it down with false smiles and laughter so practiced and perfect over each year that nobody can tell. Let me scream and shout and just get it all out because I need help.
Finally, finally I want to be rid of it. There's one way, quick and easy if you do it right. Just need a knife, a driver not paying attention or going too fast to stop, a few pills, a bottle of bleach, the edge of a building, a bridge, a rope. I just want it to finally end.
Help me.
I need to be rid of it. I'm not sure how many times this song has played over tonight but this is the last night I'm going to hear it. I have a knife, I'm home alone, and I hate being alone. Help me, somebody.
Please just help me.
…
The song pauses as my text tone rings in my ears. I grab it and hold it above my head. I smile… It's not false, I feel relieved, I have a chance tonight.
King Tobio
You felt a bit weird in practice today.
Are you okay?