[mature] Living Inside A Shell | Closed

[Kradle]

I don't feel enough for you to cry
here's a lullaby to close your eyes

Sadness. It is too simple of a word, he thought, it barely scratches the surface of a pool that felt so deep; because sadness, in itself, seemed like more than one feeling. One could, in truth, simply feel sad, but there are so many different types of sadness, that to simply say you are sad felt too short. 

Sadness was not his tears falling on the ground, nor was it the deep sobs that wracked his body while those tears were shed. Tears are merely the result of something much deeper, and one does not have to cry to feel sad, in the same way that one does not have to feel sad to cry. Sadness was the many nights he spent awake by himself, it was the doubts that flooded his mind, the harsh voices that barraged his ears, the tightness in his chest that wouldn't go away, the aches deep within his body that could never be pin pointed to one spot. Sadness was not a frown, rather, it was stillness. The stillness of the fact that things would not move the way he wanted them to, no matter how hard he tried or pushed.

Disappointment, frustration, fear, hopelessness, pain, exhaustion. These are the things that truly define what he believed to be sadness. He dragged his inky body across the powdery snow, hooves as heavy as his own heart as he made his way to the water. He paused at the edge of the river, looking up towards the night sky, gazing at the stars with more desperation in his eyes than he could ever hope to express with words or thoughts alone; the kind of desperation one feels only when they truly believe there is no hope. The desperation one feels when they want something to hold onto so badly, to cling to something and feel there is a reason to push on. In those moments, everything around him felt as still as his insides. The wind did not blow, the snow was not falling like it was earlier, the trees did not sway, only his breath in front of him and the sounds of the river below remained to let him know that the world was still moving, that he was still moving. 

Finally, he looked down, and this time he did not close his eyes or run from his reflection. He stared at the water below him with such pain inside of him as the demon stared back. This demon had ears that curled in the way that horns do, and cold eyes that showed no signs of love or joy, it had deep sunken features, a coat as dark as the night sky itself, and a ghostly pale face that may have suggested it died long ago. The demon looked as much like himself as he did in any other reflection, because to him there was no greater demon than himself. He was bad, that much he knew to be true. He was bad, he was stupid, he was irrational, he was ugly, he was flawed in so many ways that it would take him all of the night and then the nights to come to list all of them. How could he ever blame anyone for not holding him, for not loving him, for not seeing him, when he himself felt such deep hatred for his own existence? How could anyone ever look at someone with such flaw and sin and even begin to love them? If he thought of himself with such distaste, he could only begin to imagine how others must feel about him. 

The stallion closed his eyes and let his tears fall freely down into the water, swept away with the river along with small chunks of ice and snow that had broken away from the riverbank. Sobs escaped from deep within him, shaking his frail body, weak from self starvation and exhaustion. Sadness was eating him from the inside out, and it spoke to him words he could not help but believe. He was worthless, he was a mistake, he was unworthy of love, unworthy of joy, unworthy of safety, unworthy of gentleness, unworthy of kind words. His legs shook and collapsed under him, and he lay in the cold snow as he wept, wishing so badly for everything to just be over, praying so desperately for peace. He pondered why he didn't just plunge himself into the icy water, to let himself drown, to let himself freeze to death, to just feel the pain that he deserved, and to just finally have everything finally fucking stop; the thoughts, the tears, the pain, the stress, all of it.

In truth, he wanted someone to speak to, he wanted someone who would listen without judgement, without telling him he hadn't tried hard enough, without telling him to just get over it. He wanted to be drunk off relief, to scream his lungs out and cry without shame, to show someone how deeply he was hurting. At the same time, however, his thoughts and emotions were all he had left that were his own, and he wanted to keep them close to himself, a safely kept secret that only he had access to. Afterall, he thought, there were so many who had their own issues, many worse than his, why should he burden them with his as well? How selfish could he truly be? He was disgusted with himself for even contemplating sharing such things with someone else. He wasn't supposed to feel these things anyways, he was a cruel man, he ripped the flesh of those who angered him, he had done so much wrong in his life, and that's how he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be cold and unfeeling, violent with no reason. So why did he feel these aches so strongly? Why did his bones cry for peace? Why did his eyes ache in want of sleep? Perhaps he truly wasn't good at anything, not even at being himself.

Kradle