Journal

This shall be a representation of my deepest and truest self; all of the emotions I cannot spill forth for the world’s eyes to devour shall be engraved in the depths of these pages for my eyes alone.  After all, these thoughts and feelings of mine may very well be painful to those around me.  Some people in this world, very few I am sure, would be able to relate with me and any of my coming experiences though out high school. I will keep this journal though for future reference.  I want no one here to be able to pinpoint exactly when each paragraph was written so I will refrain from using specific dates.  Thus, the structure of this journal will be a little choppy, but I can live with that. 
         This life is so depressing.  I don’t know how many times I’ve caught myself thinking about how it would be easier just to die.  Just once I could let, no encourage, the blood to flow freely; to feel the light headed “high”  of blood loss; to feel the warmth that has kept me trapped in this accursed world all these years, trickle down my arm and fall heavily to the floor:  A drop heavy with the years of use and pain.  How much blood have I lost over the years I wonder?  All I can say is, enough to kill me.  Sometimes I wish it would. 
         How can one person tell when they’ve gone too far?  Is it when they hold their breath as they hear the heart beat for its last time?  Or is it when they first consider the quiet little voice in the back of their mind that’s been whispering ideas of the darkest nature to them?  How can a person tell?  What of the other voice, the one that tells you not to listen to the quiet one?  The conscience versus the temptation?  I guess one could call it that.  How can one tell the difference between “good” and “evil” when the line is so faded and blurred? 
My freshman year and once again, I’m acting like someone I’m not.  It makes little sense to me as to why I act this way.  I’m sure that no one here, not even my family and closest friends, knows what I am really like.  I’ve spent my whole life pretending to be someone I’m not and this confuses me.  It’s never going to get any easier so why bother?  No one who knows me at all could ever truly comprehend the real me, even if I gave them a few years to adapt.  All of my true emotions have been bottled up for so long that they are hurting me.  I can tell now that my life will never get painless, not until death that is.
         I’m so nice to everyone I see, and yet, all I want to do is crawl in a small dark hole and be left alone.  I take my time to be a good listener because I haven’t found anyone I trust enough to listen to me.  Honestly, I don’t like hearing what most other people tell me, the knowledge gained from such confrontations usually sways my societal perspective in directions I don’t want it to go.  I work hard in volleyball and tennis to vent my emotions.  Somehow, they always remain bottled up.  I cling to them for fear that even a slip would award me a year’s worth of trips to the psychiatrist.  I really don’t want some shrink asking me how I feel and then telling my parents just how bad I really am.  Oh, my sorrow, pain, and loneliness will leak through some day, but I am semi-content to wait for that day.
         I often times envision my life as a play.  One that is out to see how much pain and anguish it can cause me before I break.  For instance, a play has acts.  My years in high school represent that nicely enough.  Also, a play has actors.  Those would be everyone involved in my miserable life.  An act may be subdivided into scenes.  These would be the major “highlights” of each year in high school.  The play director, well I guess that is an unknown, but who ever or whatever it is, I’m sure it out to see me to my grave.  So far I’ve been tough enough to survive my directors scheming and still keep my façade, but I highly doubt that I can last much longer.  After all, the climax of this play is swiftly approaching.  I just hope all of the actors are ready when it arrives. 
         Just the beginning of my sophomore year and already, there is trouble.  I slipped.  My “friends” are worrying about me.  My grandmother died and in trying to show the appropriate grief, I let more emotion slip than was necessary.  Some of my friends caught the change immediately and began worrying.  Little did they know I was grieving my ultimate demise more than the one of my grandmother.  After all, I figured she was in a better place, which isn’t hard to do as compared to this torture of a world.  Everyone is worried about this “episode” of depression.  What an eye opener it would be for them if they found out that I’ve felt this way my entire life.
         My friends have started asking me if there is anything they can do for me.  I am so tempted to tell them to just leave me alone, but that would only make them bother me more.  What a curveball that would be though.  For some reason, I am harassed by the idea that I am going to be dealt the killing blow amidst all of these people.  My whole life, I’ve just wanted to retreat from society.  Yet, I’ve never been able to.  This life which gleefully causes and watches my anguish won’t leave me alone.  Even in my dreams, I’m surrounded by people.  Why can’t I just be left alone? 
         Halfway through my sophomore year and I’ve met a boy who is crazy about me.  He asked me out and I told him yes.  Hopefully, this will make up for the depressing episode earlier this year.  This boy is really sweet, but he is also very timid.  My friends think we are a cute couple and are very happy together.  I can tell though that this relationship isn’t going to last.  I really don’t want to hurt him, or anyone else, when I leave. 
         My grandfather died recently.  Another torture dealt in stride to me in this play.  Apparently, some unseen force enjoys watching me suffer.  How depressing.  I can’t let my emotions slip as I did with my grandmother’s death though.  That would have everyone coming closer and trying to take care of me again.  That is a torture in itself that I do not want to suffer.  Anyway, it is better to keep everyone at a distance now.  Were I to show any depression or sorrow now, they would swarm like moths to a flame.  They would show how much “they care” which is the opposite of what I want.  I don’t want them to grieve when this is over, but of course, they will…
         I broke up with my boyfriend at lunch today.  I’ve never felt so relieved in my life.  I didn’t do it just because I would be tied down to one less person, but also because he wasn’t the right boy for me.  Can there be a right boy for someone with so short a life left?  I liked him, but we are much better off just being friends.  I would prefer us to be distant friends to relieve him of a little grief from the swiftly approaching climax.  I doubt this will happen though.  Also, this didn’t backfire as I thought it would, finally, one reprieve from agony. 
         Unfortunately, time flows on, unhindered by mankind.  The beginning of my junior year is here.  I am semi-curious to find out the tortures this year will bring me.  People still won’t leave me alone, as much as I try to distance myself from them, so I guess there is one torment.  I feel so selfish when I look at all of these people who will mourn my death.  I figure that this selfishness is just another minute torture before my end.
         Oh Lord, help me please.  This is going too far.  I’ve fallen in love with a boy.  He likes me too.  Curse you director and all your torturous, traitorous schemes.  He asked me out and I barely had enough air in my lungs to whisper yes to him.  This is going to end sadly, but we love each other and make each other happy.  Neither one of us is timid so practically everyone in the school know we are dating.  Bad thing!  I’ve people constantly talking to me about my relationship with him and how adorable we are together.  I have to get people away from me.  I’m already going to hurt my love. 
         I can confide everything in my boyfriend.  He is the one I’ve been waiting for to trust enough to tell everything to.  He listens to me and I listen to him.  He makes me so happy anytime I’m around him.  We don’t share any classes, but he insists on walking me to my classes anyway.  We are so crazy about each other.  That can only bode badly in the end.  It is hard to think about the end with him right in front of me though. 
         Today, the climax, the last scene I participate in while I’m living.  My boyfriend and I are still deeply in love.  He knows all about my fears, but he keeps trying to make me believe they are not important.  When he is around, they aren’t but as soon as he leaves me, I am afraid of really leaving him.  I am not sorry for having told him I would date him, it has been the best six months of my life, but I am remorseful that I am leaving him to grieve my death.  I’m sorry, I love you.  Here we are, twenty seven teenagers sitting in our last class of the day, chemistry.  I know that if I can make it to the bell, then I’ll get to meet up with my boyfriend for fifteen minutes before we both head to our respectable sports.  That isn’t going to happen though.
         I look around the classroom and see the faces of people I’ve spent the last two years of my life with.  For some reason, I already grieve for them.  I grieve that they can’t live out a good and fulfilling life without this black day festering in their minds from now on.  As a tear begins to snake its way down my face, I lay my head down and start to pray.  I pray that the burden of grief is not too much on those we leave behind, including my love of whom I don’t want to leave, and that everyone who is to die today will find happiness after death.
           Suddenly right in the middle of my prayers and class, the school alarm peels.  Everyone jumps.  After about one hundredth of a second we recover and my teacher locks both doors in the classroom.  She proceeds to have us push tables under each door and then sit on the ground with our backs to the wall.
         The alarm shuts off abruptly and an almost palpable silence ensues.  I’d promise I could hear the heartbeats of everyone in our room.  Then, a blistering sound shatters our silent hopes.  It is the sound of gunfire and screams.  Many of the screams are cut short as the owner of each voice is released from this world and its torments.  Our classroom is as quiet as an empty cemetery.  No one even dares to breath in hopes that the killer will overlook us.  This attempt is futile.  If someone is doomed to die, they are going to die.  As soon as the haunting screams quit echoing in my ears, I can hear footsteps in the hall approaching this classroom.  I know that everyone else could hear it too because their faces blanch and are horror stricken.  I imagine I look the same. 
         The unknown murderer stops and so does all of the breathing in the room.  Our hearts give us away though, betray us, for they all speed up as if on cue from that treacherous play director who finds glee in others pain.  The killer figures the room is occupied anyway.  The handle thrashes violently as it tries to permit entrance to our personal angel of death.  Then, as abruptly as it started, the handle stills.  My class feels only relief as they hear the killer start to walk away.  Here it comes.  The trigger is pulled and the automatic weapon growls and roars in response.  The murderer sweeps the gun down the wall that we have our backs to.
         Bullets start spraying through the wall and everyone dives or falls to the floor.  I fall.  For as I knew, a bullet tares through my body with the wrath of a grizzly bear and drags me down.  It is excruciatingly hard to breathe with two holes blown through a lung and blood swiftly filling that lung.  The bullet that so damaged me keeps going and hits another person in the shoulder.  That person happens to be my x-boyfriend.  Someone I had tried to distance myself from at no use.  Thankfully, he was only clipped in the shoulder due to the fact that he was already diving to the floor. 
         As the storm of gunfire and bullets stops, the school is filled with screams of pain, moans of agony, and tears of sorrow for the second time in ten minutes.  I can feel more tears snake their way down my face as I try to keep breathing.  Thankfully, I still have one healthy lung and people have been known to survive with just one lung.  Unfortunately, this cruel play director just had a hole blown straight threw me and the blood is running very fast. 
         I can hear the sirens pierce the thick air.  Another spray of bullets goes off, but outside this time.  I hear only one scream this time.  It is cut short by more gunfire.  The police took care of our angel of death.  People start running into the building our teacher has to move the table and unlock the door so the Medics can enter.  I am their top priority in this room because no one else, that survived, is as severely injured as I am.  My breathing is more of a gurgling than anything else.  I’m not going to give in to the darkness threatening to take me from this life though.  I couldn’t do that to my boyfriend. 
          A hand is pressing tightly on the hole in my chest.  It hurts badly, but I can understand the need and I try not to make a sound.  The sirens are going off again, but they sound like they are right above me.  I guess I’m in and ambulance.  Someone is holding my hand, but I can’t open my eyes to see who it is.  They keep telling me, “It is going to be alright, you’ll get through this, you have too.”  My ears are still ringing from the gunfire and I can’t really tell who it is by the voice either.  Thank you though, whoever you are, you are giving me hope and something in this world to hold onto. 
         Am I really going to die?  I can hear my heartbeat or is it the beeping of a monitor that I hear.  I think they are going at the same pace so it doesn’t really matter.  Anyway, whatever it is, it is going very slowly as compared to the sprints my heart was doing earlier.  Each beat resounds in my ears now, heavy and slow.  Did I ever go too far, commit any evil or injustice?  I hope not.
         The darkness is creeping in on the edges of my vision.  My body is very cold.  The blood that still circulates through my body feels like liquid fire in a glacier.  It is scorching.  The sun is setting in a fiery blaze on this mournful day.  The shadows are encroaching.  I’m in a hospital all bandaged up and with monitors galore strapped to me.  As the last rays of sunlight fade, the door to my room opens just enough to admit a slight but warm draft and a single person.  My heart flutters when I see this person and one of the monitors betrays me.  I feel some blood rise under my cheeks in a blush from the slight embarrassment. 
         A smile, sorrowful and relieved, lights the face of my love.  He drags a chair next to my bed, sits in it, and holds my hand.  He brushes a lock of hair from my face and the monitor betrays me again.  Again with that beautiful smile.  He tells me he loves me.  I tell him ditto and then ask if he knows the details of the day’s occurrences.    He tells me about how the killer had been some mass murderer that loved going to public schools and gunning them down.  The police had been looking for him for the past month but he had managed to elude them up until today.  The police had killed the man.  My love told me he had been the one in the ambulance holding my hand.  He also told me that the doctors had been able to sew me back up.  I could tell he was avoiding telling me something.  I finally asked him what the death toll was.  He face was suddenly ashen.  He replied that twenty people had died and another thirty one had been injured, including myself.  That was fifty people I knew.  Then, with these thoughts fresh in mind, I let my heavy eyes close.  No I thought to myself, correcting my loves statement, twenty-one died today and thirty were injured.  Finally, I was at peace.