Alone

I loathe being idle. Being lazy, sure. Idle, no. When I am alone, I keep my head down, concentrating into work, random time wasting activities, sink into a fantasy world, but never ever idle.

More often than not these days, I am alone. And when you're alone and idle at the same time, they start creeping in. They crawl out from the recess of your mind and start to claw against the insides of your skull. If you were to look underneath it, I'm sure you'll find the scratch marks.

And so I preoccupy myself. Overwhelmingly, I will always be engaged in something, be it pointless or helpful. Keep the senses busy. Can't spare too much mental capacity if your senses are bombarded.

Of course I can't keep this up forever. Who can? One needs to sleep after all. Oh how I loathe having to sleep. Having to keep your mind clear of thoughts just enough to sleep without having them crawl out is not impossible. Just so incredibly hard.

I toss and turn at night because I can't fall asleep. I can't keep my head quiet. It's all voluntary of course. To let it quiet down without arming myself to the teeth is just madness. Though all things considered, it never helps now does it?

The moment your defences go down, it floods over. It drowns out everything. It almost bleeds its way out of your head. Its almost, poetic, the way it pulls you down into itself. Almost like art. Almost like dying.

Sleep is the only time I ever have a risk of meeting the caged things that sharpen their nails while in wait. Best to tire out the body until sleep is almost instant. They can't come out if they don't have the time to do so see?

I don't hate loneliness. Sometimes the company that is yourself is a good thing. Sometimes, just sometimes, you just want to be alone. To reflect. To think. To process. But other times, loneliness is like the food the creatures absolutely love.

It's not impossible to feel lonely in a crowd. It's not impossible to feel lonely with a friend. It's definitely not impossible to feel lonely even with those you are familiar with.

I don't think I live on an island. Nor do I think I'm stuck in a well. Perhaps the best metaphor would be to be inside a bubble? Even with others, no one penetrates the bubble. No one really gets through. Converse, participate, work, it all is possible. But the only company I have in that bubble is myself.

What do you call this bubble really? I mean really, what is this bubble? Is it personal space? Is it the false self I show to others? Is it my active process of not letting anyone dig into my head? What the hell is this bubble that stops me from connecting to people? I'm not even sure if its made by myself, or just a product of my nature.

Admittedly I am terrified. Terrified of tearing away this bubble. Terrified to let someone into my head. Terrified that if someone has the key to it all, they would take what that is me and leave. They say we stopped checking for monsters under our bed because we realized they were inside of us. Maybe I'm also just terrified that if someone comes in, they would run away at the sight of it.

It takes courage to break the bubble at all. It takes courage to be so vulnerable, so open to attack. It take courage to be at risk of being hurt from falling down, of not being protected from the dangers of everything else. It takes courage to even filter the things that enter. Everything so carefully examined, observed, before I can even allow it to worm its way in slowly. It takes courage to have someone else in here with me, courage that I don't have.

But I can't deny that I would very much like not to be alone.