Sometimes...
~*~
I lie on my back in bed, look up at the roof over my head, and think about what it would be like if I were dead.
It's not a happy thing to do, and I don't do it often, but there are just some nights where the thought strikes me and I can't shake it. I make sure that I don't wake the human sleeping next to me as I sit alone in the darkness, just hearing my own breaths. Wondering what it would be like if they suddenly stopped. I don't sleep, I can't. With those thoughts looming in there, I don't want to close my eyes, because I don't know what I might find waiting for me. I have nightmares when I think these thoughts and feelings, the way they bleed over into my dreams is insidious. Which is strange, because I don't feel afraid when I think about it at times like this. Death scares me, sure, but not right now.
Right now, my lover sleeps peacefully at my side. Right now there's a soft, lovely patter of rain on the roof above. Right now, the air tastes warm, the way it does when someone else is breathing in the same space as you. Right now, I am calm, I am awake, I am here.
Right now I wish I were dead.
It's a confusing sensation, and one that's hard to explain. When this thought occurs to me or I have the urge to say it, it doesn't exactly say what I mean. I don't want to kill myself. I don't want to die. I don't want to even hurt myself most of the time, except maybe emotionally, with horrible masochistic self-deprecating thoughts. But I don't want to be alive anymore, either. I just want to stop, and be dead for a while. Just a snap of the fingers, no more Berry Punch. Probably temporarily. Maybe not.
I suppose that's more like sleep than death. A coma maybe. Hell, there's a chance I'll die in a coma anyway. I should be careful what I wish for.
As I lie here tonight, I can hear echoes in my head of that wish, and I want to say it out loud, to hear it, to acknowledge that this thought is real. But I also feel like I should be ashamed of it, and that saying it will make it to real. It's like some incantation or curse, and speaking it aloud will summon demons. If I say it out loud, maybe it will suddenly come true. And I don't know that I want that. I wish I was dead, I don't wish to die. I know, it's complicated, it's confusing. I wouldn't blame others for not getting it.
I wish I had a drink. That's pretty much the same thing as wishing I was dead at this point too. So I don't feel too bad about the impulse this time.
I try to roll over, not stare straight up with eyes open and aching from lack of sleep. I try to count sheep the way Applejack once suggested I do. I try to sing myself a lullaby, like Fluttershy suggested. I remind myself it's all in my head, that I can logic through this, that these thoughts are just chemical imbalances, and that I'm in control, just as Twilight put it. That does tend to give me some solace, usually. Because I am in control. And I'm not going to do anything about it. I still have some health, some time left, people who love me. And I won't waste that all.
But at the same time, why shouldn't I wish for death sometimes? The world feels like an effort for my every waking day at this point. I wake up, take pills, and try to go on with my life as normal. But I can feel it ebbing. My liver is fighting back, and I can see the dark circles under my eyes growing. Things that I never worried about before are starting to creep in on me.
I almost fainted in public yesterday. My dear sweet Anon caught my shoulder as I toppled to the side. Other ponies barely glanced up but I felt my breath quicken, as if someone was pulling claws across the bones in my ribcage. It had never been so bad before, so sudden. I had lost control. And Anon had smiled, like nothing was wrong, and he had brought me home and treated me so gently the rest of the day.
A part of me loved that. Another part of me hated the rest of me for loving it.
I'm not an invalid, not yet. I don't want to feel good about being pampered and coddled. But I was so frustrated, so broken down that it actually felt good. It felt so good and I was disgusted with myself for liking it. I find, thinking about it now, that I don't want to go back out to the marketplace again. What if it happens a second time? What if Anon isn't with me, what if it's worse? He'd hate to hear me say it, so I certainly won't say this part out loud, but maybe he'd be happier without me around to take care of. Well, maybe not happier, but maybe better off. He wouldn't think so, but sometimes I do.
What do I even add to this world, anyway? I was the town drunk, turned sober, though few people know it. I was a party girl who liked to take others into her bed, but now I'm only with one person. I don't really have a defined place in Ponyville anymore, and if I was gone, I get the feeling most would forget me. I'd become a name that, when mentioned, would be met with a frown, a shake of the head, and a murmur of "a shame about her" before moving on to the weather and the cost of asparagus.
But the end will come soon enough for me, and I have time. I might even have loads of time, a year or two. That's ages, it's not passing that quickly, now that I have someone at my side. I feel a surge of regret that I'll have to leave him, that I will let him down yet again when I pass. I'm already letting him down here and there, not showing up to things, canceling because I don't feel well, not being excited about things he's excited about, demanding attention when he has his own troubles. It will be a while, but I will let him down one more time, a final time. And I won't even get to say I'm sorry.
I hate myself then. As I try to shut my eyes and pull the blanket up over my ears and mane, I hate myself inside and out. I hate my body, hate my weaknesses, my fears, my self doubt, and I even hate the hatred as it settles over me like a prickly wool blanket. I want to scream at myself that I hate myself, but there are people I would wake up and disturb, so I swallow the words, and try to swallow the feeling too.
If I was dead, I wouldn't hate myself like this.
God I'm so worthless. I'm so helpless without him here, and I lean on him too much. He'll never say I'm a burden, but I feel that way sometimes. But he signed up for this job, he knew what he got coming in, he knew I was sick. And he loves me.
He'd miss me if I was gone. He'll miss me when I'm done. Maybe, if I could not only be dead but just vanish from existence for a little while, so he wouldn't hurt at my not being there. That might be nice. The world would turn, he'd go on with life. I hope I've made a positive impact on him, I really do. But I also hope that, if he'd never met me, he'd still have a happy life.
My body aches, and my eyes feel dry from not blinking as I peer into the darkness under the blankets. My breath feels too hot, and I pull it down from my head, enjoying how crisp the air feels outside my little cloth hideaway. All the sounds in the room are suddenly amplified. They speak to me. The creak of the window tells me that I'll break at some point. The tap of the rain tells me I'm still alive though, right now, and that won't change anytime soon. And that clock...
Yes, I can hear you clock over there on the wall. I hear your warning to me.
Tick, tick, tick...
Time is passing.
My candle is burning down. How long now until it goes out? How long until there comes a day where I can't get out of bed, can't do things I love, can't force myself to smile? How long?
Tick, tick, tick...
Another minute gone. Another minute wasted doing nothing. You're dying, Berry, and you're going down without a fight. Didn't you always say you'd go down swinging? Didn't you always say it bravely, like you'd swell with courage in your final days and put up your hooves as death sauntered in through your door? But it wasn't that easy, was it? It isn't that easy, and there's nothing to fight. There's just you, no adversary, no battle to be fought. Just you and the time.
Tick, tick, tick...
Aren't you tired, Berry? Isn't the waiting getting to you? Why are you still here? Why are you still trying? You're not making progress. Every step forward falters, and you stumble back two paces. Wouldn't it be nice not to have to push on? Wouldn't it be nice to not feel like this every day? To feel weakness growing? To know that each accomplishment you make is something everyone else does without a second thought? Wouldn't it be nice if you stopped hating yourself as you decline?
Wouldn't it be nice to be dead?
The sound of the clock ticks on like a steady rhythm in the back of my mind, punctuated by my own shallow breathing and the occasional motions and sighs of the man on the pillow next to me. Wouldn't it be nice to be dead, I repeat the words in my mind, trying them on like an ill-fitting gown.
I shut my eyes tightly, then open them. I can't even feel if there are tears there right now.
None of these thoughts are right. None of these feelings are right. They are a fog I can't see though, but I know they're only tiny drops of water clouding my vision. They're wrong. All of them. But they don't shut up.
Is this what being suicidal is like? I don't actually know, if I'm honest. Or does everyone feel this way sometimes. I don't believe I'm suicidal right now, because I don't want to hurt myself, not really, even if yelling at myself or berating myself feels right at times. I don't want to cut open my neck or forelegs. I don't want to hang myself or jump from a high cliff. I don't want to kill myself. And I won't. But being dead does sound nice, it does have a certain ring to it. A siren's call I can't fully make out the lyrics too. It's one I won't answer or try to sing along with.
I'm here. I'll be here. Even if it hurts to keep trying, keep fighting, keep living, it's a hurt that's worth it. Not just for others, but for me too. I know that. I live by that, I chant that as a mantra when I get out of bed. But sometimes... sometimes... I just wish it would be over. Or have never happened at all. I suppose that's very selfish of me. But hey, I'm dying. I think I get to be selfish sometimes. And I haven't said it, don't say it out loud, because until I do it's not fully real. I have my control. I'm okay, I will be okay.
Just sometimes... sometimes...
I feel a sudden motion in the bed beside me, and Anon's voice flickers in his throat before coming to full light in words. His eyes meet with mine, and though a blur of sleep, he sees I'm still awake.
"Berry?" he half-mumbles, half-groans.
He's cute when he's groggy, and I allow myself a smile.
"Yeah?"
"You're still awake?"
I hesitate, then risk a lie. A small lie I wish was the truth, and isn't even fully false.
"Nah, just having a bad dream. I'll be back to sleep in a few."
He frowns, but his brain can't struggle into being fully awake. I press a hoof to his cheek, and it soothes him. I see his shoulders relax under the covers.
"Wanna talk about it?" he mostly whispers.
"It's okay, just stay close to me, keep the monsters away, alright?"
"I'm worried about you."
His eyes are shutting and he's fading fast. I press a simple kiss to his forehead, and I watch his breathing slow a little, the rise and fall of the hill his body makes under the blankets becoming more regular.
"I love you," he whispers, like an afterthought, muttered in a dream already spinning itself into color.
"I love you too."
He sighs. Almost gone. A little more reassurance and he'll sleep again.
"Don't worry," I say. "sleep well."
And with those words, he does. Like shutting the pages of a book for later. I settle back in bed and watch him for a few moments, admiring how easily and restfully he sleeps sometimes. I'm jealous, but I honestly just want him to not feel what I do right now, to get some rest, the kind I wish I could get tonight. And I'll try. I'll try to sleep, and make sure he doesn't worry. And with that last word to him, I haven't lied. He doesn't need to worry about me, not tonight, and he has every reason to rest easy. Because, despite it all, besides what the voices in my head might say, without fail...
I'll be here when he wakes up in the morning.
-END-