Demons
She sits in the middle of the room, tears run in mascara-black rivulets across her skin. On the cold, white, tiled floor she looks small, maybe some kind of porcelain doll, maybe just a little girl. Her hair hangs in a cascade around her face, the pretty face that is screwed up in agony as she sobs. A bottle lies broken on the floor across from her, and her phone lies next to it ignored. She doesn't care what's around her, she only cares about her own grief which comes in heart-wrenching pain from inside her until she's crying like a child. That impossible type of pain- where you can't do anything to stop it and you just feel inconsequential, out of control, and small.
I don't know why she's crying yet. I just know that she will. Her head will be aching from over indulgence in alcohol, and her brain will be scattered like the contents of her handbag. Which, incidentally, is probably left on the floor, open and upside down somewhere where it's going to be stood on, or forgotten about entirely. Who knows what the hell has gone wrong this time? With her it could be anything from a one night stand gone bad, to realising that she's pregnant. Maybe her father has died, maybe she's just done something so stupid she feels like she's lost control of her life.
It's probably got something to do with alcoholism. And with her, I'd guess that a man had treated her badly in some way too. She's superficial, she's flighty, and she's too easily obsessed by things that cause her too much pain.
And she's damaged. She's been damaged for a long time. Once she was even told that she was damaged property. It was flung in her face by a boy, a boy who didn't like rejection. But the knowledge that it was only said for the revenge of his bruised ego didn't cause the insult to hurt her any less. It still stung right down to her very core. The worst insults are the ones we secretly whisper to ourselves in the darkness, the ones we never admit to and fling out at people around us in the hopes that calling it out in others will somehow make it alright to be that too. He was lucky, he chose the right insult, never realising how much he had it right, never realising that he'd engraved himself into her memory forever over such a small thing.
I think she's scared. How can you be so messed up if you aren't scared? It isn't possible. You drown yourself in alcohol and throw yourself at men because you're scared. You're scared that if you don't get the men you'll die alone. You think that being beautiful and always having someone somehow makes you better. It means that no matter how many men you go through, how many recognise you for who you are and drop you, you still have someone. There is still some idiot out there who will fall into the trap. And one day you'll meet someone who will understand you, who won't run away at the first sign of the underlying madness. But you're scared because you know that its entirely possible that that person doesn't exist. So you'll live a lonely life with only inconstant companions, men who will satisfy you for a day, but forget you in a week.
The alcohol doesn't stop you from being scared. But occasionally it numbs the pain a little. You learnt long ago that it won't make you forget, none of the important things anyway, but for a while it means that you don't care. You can get on with simply being without the hassle of remembering too.
But you can't run away forever. When you realise who you are, or you do something so outrageous that even you are disgusted with yourself. When you realise that you've turned into that most horrifying concept- your own mother. That's when you cry. You cry because you feel cheap, used, dumb, pointless. You cry because you haven't done anything worthwhile. You cry because you look in the mirror, and are forced to acknowledge yourself.
Labels: Demons, Falling, Poetic licence
