Writing Prompt

TW: dark themes __ __ __ __ “Swallow me whole.” I begged. My bright, colorful room filled with nothing but dread. Door shut, thuds of loved ones before they give up. Shouting “STOP BEING LAZY! You’re such a screw up.” I welk in my bed, enacting evey berufen I know so that the monsters will leave my head. Confined in my room, weighted with items of tremendous memories. Walls of posters, shelves of my favourite reads. To sink into my pillow, imagining a world so beautiful and peaceful. Rather than the words sharpened like knives and lies so distasteful. Conflicted as the good, the bad and the ugly swirl around across my ceiling. Ashamed by the relief my sleeves were always concealing.

Hidden here I wish to remain. Fading slowly as wilts my pain. Flashes from outside cause me blink but I return, back to the dismal thinking where I can only yearn. Leaning against the window adorned by rain. Watching the emptied city, washed over in disdain. Following the fall of the drops. Withering away like a corpse.

Guilt digs through me like tsunami waves tear up waterfront towns, a path of destruction left by the peaceful thrash of waves abounds. Confined to the shadows and colour of my room. Yet too engulfed by darkness to fight off the gloom. The view from up here, I pause and adore. I wish that I had noticed it before my feet stepped off the floor.

As the rope tightens around my neck, confining my breath. This was when I welcomed death.

LLK.

-not personal just something I came up with-

I’m so sorry. I’m so fricking sorry. This is all my fault. I hurt you, I hurt you in the worst way possible, And you forgave me. You gave me a second chance, One I didn’t deserve. One I still don’t. You gave me something I never earned, Something I probably never will. I’m just not enough. I don’t know how to be. I swear to you, I’m not trying to be annoying or hurtful Or rude Or insulting Or dramatic Or any of the things I am. I’m not trying to be stupid. That’s just all I know how to be. I don’t know how, But I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to earn your forgiveness. Trying to prove I’m worth it - Both to you and myself.

I’m so sorry.

Swallow. Choke it down. They don't really want your truths after all. When they ask how you are, it is all just a test to see how well you keep the words clenched between your teeth. If you bite down on them hard enough, it starts to look like a smile.

Hidden. That's what you are. Your true self is locked away. It is the mask they truly seek anyway. The face you wear in a crowd. The one they find most appealing. That is who they want to keep around.

Guilt. It is all that you feel. When you question all reality, you know that you are not even real. It is your own fault you can not heal wounds left on a ghost. You've doomed yourself to this eternal damnation, somewhere in-between who you are and who you could have been.

Swallow. That's what I do with the guilt, every single day. Guzzle it down like some bitter cocktail. And goddamn does it hurt. Like shards of glass, easing their way down my throat Seven years is a long time to spend with just one man. Seven years—seven years of shared highs and lows, of escaping reality together until it all came crashing down. I remember the day he left this world, taken by a stroke that seemed as sudden as it was inevitable. Now, as I sit in the clarity of sobriety, the weight of our wasted years presses down on me. I wish I had been strong enough to pull us both out of that haze before it was too late. I wish I had chosen to love him in the way he deserved, not with the numbness of our addiction, but with the fullness of my heart.

Hidden in the shadows of my mind, there's a version of us that could have been. A version where we laughed and loved without the crutch of our next fix. I feel him in every sunrise, every moment of beauty that we should have shared sober. The shame of not being the one to break the cycle, to offer him a chance at a different ending, haunts me. I treated him badly, lost in my own selfishness, and now there's no way to apologize. No way to make amends, to tell him how deeply I loved him despite it all.

Guilt is my constant shadow. The bitter reminder of the time we squandered, the love we diluted with every hit and every shot. I’m doing better now, I'm clean, and life has a sharpness that's both beautiful and painful. I ache with the hope that he can see me, that somehow, he knows the person I've become. I wonder if he's proud, if he forgives me, if he understands why I couldn't be the one to save us both. And in those moments when I feel his absence most, I whisper into the void, hoping that he hears me, that he's somewhere out there, watching over me.

Swallow it!? I was supposed to swallow that!? It was bubbling and was a horrid shade of purple. Though I suppose it wouldn’t matter what it tasted like because if I drink this I’ll be dead in a few moments. I knew this was the only way to stop all my worries.

Hidden behind the feeling that was telling me to do this was a sense that I would regret this. Well I couldn’t regret it because I would be dead. But was this really the right thing to do. I saw Ronald step out the bush, Ronald was my best friend, he looked horrified at what I was doing. He grabbed the glass out my hand and I tried to grab it back but he swerved stopping me. “I can’t let you do this!” He said. I ignored him and kept trying to take the glass back. I didn’t expect him to do what he did next. Ronald chugged the drink down to stop me drinking it, he looked sick as soon as it touched his lips. He was unsteady before he fell to the floor. “Ronald!” I cried. He was dead!

Guilt was all I felt, my attempted suicide had resulted in Ronald’s death!

“Swallow it.” “W-wait, what?” I stammered. I looked down at the weird foaming and fuzzy mixture in the glass. It was changing from color to color but not beautiful bright colors like you might see in a children’s nursery book, no sir-ee, these were dark, odd, hideous colors that made me wanna puke. When I looked up at Bryce, he was giving me a look that made it clear he wasn’t gonna repeat himself. I took a deep breath and downed the entire glass at once. And then I started choking.

Hidden in the drink had been some kind of hard, rough ball or something and it got stuck in my throat. I gagged and coughed and waved my hands around frantically but Bryce just stood there staring at me with a poker face that almost made him look like Cillian Murphy. After hacking and pounding my chest for a couple minutes, I chugged a nearby bottle of water and the ball finally went down. I turned to Bryce and glared at him but he didn’t react he just….stared at me. At first I was annoyed but then I remembered what I’d just drank and bad feelings started welling up inside me. I opened my mouth to apologize but when I looked into his eyes, all I saw was pain.

Guilt bubbled up inside me and I felt like an utter idiot. Sure I could have really used his help a couple minutes ago when I almost died, but that didn’t excuse what I had just done. Some part of me just wanted to make excuses. I mean, after all, he gave his consent to me drinking it, begrudgingly of course, but he gave it nonetheless. Bryce suddenly whipped around and walked out of the cabin. I wanted to call after him but the potion was still sizzling in my throat and all that came out was the muffled sound of a soda can opening. I stood there in the middle of the log room with my best friend’s potion sizzling inside me. The potion his father had left for HIM. The potion HE was supposed to drink. The potion that was supposed to give HIM the power of the hawk, so he could lead our people fiercely, like his father once did. But of course, I had convinced him and our people to give it to me, like the greedy little pig I was.

Swallow that shallow hole, that sorta pit you call a soul. Or fall in - turning inside, imploding in your empty life.

Hidden truths now brought to light. Seeking light in darkened blight. Falling down in to the night - into the night you hold inside.

Guilt awaits you in your dreams. Hate will drown out all your screams. Light will turn its back and leave. So learn to love from what’s perceived.

(Goofing around. Ignore me.)

Swallow, that you will never be the same. Live the same. That this is a definitive moment in your history. As the blood seeps through your fingers, you recognize this. Close your eyes, and feel the warmth of the liquid surrounding you.

Hidden, are the ways of the world. Why does it beat down on some who have nothing but raise those with too much on a podium for everyone to gaze at? What will be given to those who live in fear, poverty, and shame? I think perhaps it would be nice to be someone besides oneself for even a single moment.

Guilt is what you feel as you collapse, that you could have had a meaningful life, perhaps given others meaning, but you chose what you did, you made decisions at the expense of others, threw away opportunity, to be here, lying on the floor, breathing your last

Swallow. You can’t just ignore this problem. Your gonna have to swallow and digest it. This is your problem. You’re responsible. You are the one they are counting on. This is because of you. Your fault. Even if you don’t want them to find out, you know they will. Eventually. You can’t keep it hidden.

Hidden? Can this thing stay hidden any longer? How could you make it so? No. No, no, no. You can’t. Or shouldn’t. You have to see this through. Your responsibility. You have to face what happened. Face it and admit what you feel.

Guilt. This is your fault. This is all because of you. Because you didn’t listen. Your brothers have been hurt because of your foolishness. You have to come clean. Two then it was you. But before, find a solution. Because everything is better with a solution.

I look at the pills They stare back My family stares at me I avoid their eyes This could change everything.

Suddenly I grab them Then throw them into my mouth I swallow With a massive gulp of water It’s done.

I’ve been taking them for a while But still feel a sense of shame If someone comes round I scramble To quickly hide them.

But slowly they start to take effect The world seems a little brighter My mind quietens Just a little I start to feel a glimmer of hope.

Then one day I’m self aware Conscious of life again But understanding brings guilt What had I done Putting my family through this.

Years later Didn’t think I’d still be here But I got help And I made it.

Yay!