He died seven years ago, when he lost his sister he gave up on himself. His days became endless nights as he faded into sleep. All the things that made him human became function, surviving only to stay alive for others.
There in that state of numbness, pain and happiness died away. Everything was just another thing to do and be done with. He stopped growing for himself, he became a reckless entity and he destroyed all of what made him an individual.
When the world got to him and he could not hold in his feelings, he would open a tube of paint and just dissolve until the feeling had hit the canvas. Cutting out rational thought and planning, denying the truth of the work. Piling up the paintings and handing them off to the first person to say they liked them. Any feeling hurt, and the paintings were feelings in th raw form. To sit and look at them was to admit that it existed.
The paintings became the only thing he could open up to, the only way that he could speak to the world. All else faded and he became the words assigned to him. If someone told him he was loud he would speak up around them; if people told him he was odd, he could only come up with odd things to say around them; if people said he was nice, he would kill himself to be a good person; if people told him he would never go anywhere, he would stop moving and lay still for days.
The only thing he would do for himself is walk, whenever he knew he was lost he would walk. Sometimes he would be gone for hours. He would walk until his legs hurt, he would walk until he got to the point where all he could do was sleep.
Work, school, social interactions all became tasks that had to be done. Normalize, assimilate; become something to avoid people asking you who you are.
make accuses, just to hide from life. Grow without purpose, just to show you are still growing.
He died so much on the inside that his body started to hurt, his organs stated to fade with his will. He gave up on the world he knew and he started to live the life he had promised he would never enter.
Then one day he laughed, and to feel happy hurt and he knew it should not. He fought his worst enemy and started to live for himself. Now to look at him you would not know he is a man struggling to live again. He is too good at looking alive, but deep down inside himself he is forcing himself to walk. To search until he finds where he is and move toward where he should be.
One step at a time, making up the living he lost in the last seven years. Fighting to wake up and move forward; fragile but determined.
-NK
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2 comments:
I like this piece of portraiture a lot--that's strong writing IMO:
"If someone told him he was loud he would speak up around them; if people told him he was odd, he could only come up with odd things to say around them; if people said he was nice, he would kill himself to be a good person; if people told him he would never go anywhere, he would stop moving and lay still for days."
But much of the rest seems to me to be told and not shown, to be offering us a glimpse into the depths of a character who hasn't even been introduced before we are offered his suffering, and that lack of initial sympathy turns the reader away.
Writers have to please readers--or else their writing becomes a classic everyone admires and no one reads. It's sad but true that readers have to be offered an occasional sweet treat. You work toward that at the end maybe, but it's a sweet treat baked by someone whose idea of sweet is still pretty tart....
please the readers and create a piece of non fiction. huh, that is a task.
I like the piece, it was more for me anyway. Sometimes I let myself forget where I was and it is hard to steer clear of something that you do not point out to yourself.
The sweet parts have not been written yet. Might sound horrible, but it was just the hand I was dealt. A hand that I can use to become a good writer that understands the depth and drive of each character.
I am working on getting my thoughts in a set line. I am holding myself to write out a few pages everyday just to reflect on myself and my thoughts. It has become something that helps me think more rationally and get a hold on what I want to do.
I had a few people read this (all but dead) piece. I know they felt it, because they did not look up till they were done and then it looked like they felt shaken. So I know it hits a tone that people understand and can feel. but it is a little much all at once.
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