Seven Ages of Man. [ TRIGGER WARNING ]

There are stages of man; are there really seven though? In this case, there are.

The first stage is oblivion, when you are young and naive, when nothing may go wrong. When you can sit at the dinner table and scarf down whatever you please, when you can be tucked in bed while your mother reads you a story, because you are scared and it’s dark. The only thing you aren’t oblivious to is the monsters you know are lurking under your bed, so you sleep on just a mattress to squash them.

The second stage is questioning, when you are a bit older, about 7 or 8. You realize that not everything is perfect.. Your parents are fighting, your sister is gone, and your brother is always out with friends. But why? And those monsters you squashed, they don’t appear physically anymore, but in your dreams. They want you to open your eyes and to really see what they are. At first, they are your general vampires or zombies, the abnormalities you fear that your parents assured you in oblivion couldn’t get you.

The third stage is realization. You are now 10, and you are realizing what is going on. Your parents are fighting from stress, part of it is your dads demanding job in which you never see him anymore, and if you do you want to avoid him to not make him angry. Another part of it is from your sister, who is growing up and is annoyed of family, who finds bad people to incorporate, and takes over her life. The next part is your brother, who uses friends and practice as an excuse to escape the gap in your family so he doesn’t fall in. It’s only the last part you don’t realize that is contributing to the stress; you.

The fourth stage is denial. You don’t want to come to terms with what is going on, as you are now 11 or 12.. Your parents are jobless, the virus has taken them and your fathers job, in which you have no income which you are struggling on. You can’t afford to live in the cheapest neighborhood anymore, the one where danger only kept rising and the police were scouting weekly, the one you couldn’t even walk around the corner to. Your brother is a stranger anymore, and your sister has moved out without an apology or a word.. What happened to our smiles on Christmas morning? What happened to the laughing? Even the fighting would be comforting through the deafening silence between those walls. You are older now, and those easter egg hunts don’t happen now. Just the burning pain of having to see your distant family. The nightmares you had in questioning are not the monsters from oblivion, but the monsters from realization. The monsters are the ones dearest in your life, the ones who you thought would never hurt you, the ones who you knew would hurt you.

The fifth stage is acceptance. You are 11, you have realized things won’t be the same, and have no hope they will ever recover, but you don’t talk about it. ‘My parents are the best!’ you brag, and come out about the abstract gap in your life.. That isn’t normal. That’s not okay. Nobody would listen anyways, ‘you’re young. Just keep shut.’ And at this point, you’ve also accepted what you couldn’t realize in stage four. You were the problem, you weren’t innocent. You contributed just as much, you were the youngest, you were the stressful, you were the stupid. Your nightmares are now anything imaginable, the things that don’t exist, and the things closest to you. The things you know will haunt you, and the ones that you hope never will.

The sixth stage is time. Time begins to override you, as you are now 12, maybe 13.. Or even younger. Time begins to take over your mind, your family still feels unreal, your brother is gone now too. It’s just you and your parents at home, who are still fighting, and after moving away from the life you’ve known and your friends at the beginning of middle school, in which you take two years to develop more friends anyways. But before those two years, or during them, your mind starts to speak for you. ‘I’m annoying.’ ‘I’m ugly.’ ‘Should I lose a few pounds?’ So you stop talking, you start covering your acne with concealer, and you start starving yourself.. All while not in the knowledge of your parents. People start to bully you. You got punched in the face a few times, a black eye, bloody noses from a guy you liked.. ‘It’s okay, I deserve it.’ You tell your best friend. The only friend you had, since your other ones talk crap about you, or their friends don’t like you so you don’t hang out with them. You start to look in the kitchen more,

[Triggering Content. I’d like to advise, my parents have knowledge of this, and I am okay. It’s been years.]

And you look at the silverware. You go back to your room, the pocket knife that reads ‘___’ haunting your mind.. You don’t like that name, you don’t know why. You take the knife, and you use your flesh to sharpen it. Over the course of months it feels less and less satisfying, so you have to sharpen it more and more for the blade to be at its perfect; in reality, the blade is breaking inside. It wants you to give it a break, tears shedding from it every night in the style crimson. You hate that knife, and you want it to break. Not realizing it’s been breaking since before it was picked up.

The seventh stage is unknown, as it’s been years now.. You’re almost 16, that knife is still broken, but it's recovering. You have a stable life, a caring lover, and all but to your family that stupid name is no longer in use.. You just wish you could tell your family that now. Your family found out about that broken knife, your parents sat you down to tell you that it’s not okay, and offered their support. They saw the crimson breaks on your flesh, pieces of that knife and its pain. They wished they realized sooner.. Yet another one of their kids lost to satisfaction. After all those painful years, they come to a realization, and your family is recovering. Your parents still fight, but not as often.. Your brother has a fiance who is your sister, and your biological sister is now happily married with a man who finally saw past that shattered facade. You still hate yourself, but now there are days.. Days where that hate took a vacation, and looking in the mirror you smile. No longer would your oblivion look at you and say ‘what a disappointment,’ but instead ‘I see your improvement.’