The Ramblings of a Teenage Insomniac.

It's funny how loud silence can be, late at night, when the beautiful oblivion of sleep floats barely out of your reach. It's funny how things like the tick-tocking of the clock on the wall, a sound that normally would go by unnoticed as softly as the ghost of a whisper, now seems to be screaming, shrieking at you. Stop. Stop focusing on it, you're the one making it seem so loud. The harsh voice in my head chides me. I nod to no one and squeeze my eyes shut tightly, enjoying the complete darkness as I let my lungs fill with a deep breath before letting it escape from between my teeth slowly. I roll over on my old lumpy mattress, burying my head into my pillow- the familiar but not necessarily pleasant, stale smell is comforting because it is a constant, an anchor, that reminds me some things, at least the smell of old pillows, stay the same. I pull my comforter over my head, feel the warmth of my own body heating me. I lay there, fragile and breathing, when the thoughts start to creep in to the deepest part of my subconscious. Thoughts of who; who I like, who I lust over, who've I let back in my life, and who I haven't. Who I've messed up with, and all the things I should have said. Thoughts about the past and the future, but never the present, thoughts of things that torment me, dragging me back once I get close to sleep. 

Stop. Stop. I plead with myself. Go away. I groan, a desperate mangled sound from the back of my throat, and sit up. I rub my face. My skin feels too hot against my cold hands, my eyes feel too sore and are still crusted with yesterday's make-up; my eyelids are too heavy. And my heart, well, my heart too confused to deal with my brain, which is currently screaming at me about school, and missed assignments, and just everything. It is too much. I throw the blankets off me, all of the sudden feeling too hot, too cramped and claustrophobic. I look around and grab a book from the pile that surrounds my bed. I let it fall open in my lap, and a begin reading. It didn't matter what it was, it was something else. Somewhere else. Somewhere in a far-away land, or in the future, or the past. Someone else's problems and heartaches and challenges. Something, sometimes the only thing, that distracted me. I check the clock before I start. 1:27 a.m. I read, page by page, and chapter by chapter. I know this book, I've read it many times before. I love it, the familiarity of it.

 Even though I know what's coming, the heart wrenching parts of heartache and death- they still bring tears to my eyes, and I have to steel myself off, make myself devoid of emotion, to stop them from spilling over the brim. I read and read until turning the page cramps my hand, until my eyes are half closed. But now it's personal. Now I have to finish the book. I have to. I read, the images of the familiar characters and epic battles and power struggles fill my head. I close the book again, having read it cover to cover- all 413 pages. I check my phone again for the time before crawling into bed. 5:45, on the dot. I make a note of this as I crawl back under the now cold blankets, and let myself doze off for the luxury of 3 whole hours. I wake with a feeling that is somewhat related to accomplishment, but still with the empty ache in my stomach. The ache for something more. More than this. More than this bed and this town, and this book. More than my simple life. I want to be the characters in the book, who actually have adventures. I want to crawl between the pages of the books that mean so much to me, the books that are my escape, and let the type and the words swirl around me and swallow me whole. I want to wake up in a far-off place with new people. I want and I need, but I have to make due with this, with myself, for now. I trace a lumpy pattern in the paint on the wall next to my bed with my fingertips, closing my eyes and just feeling the ridges and curves of it. The roughness, the one pointy part that sticks out. The part that I push my finger against until I feel the sharp sting. I sigh and open my eyes, seeing the same four walls I have for 7 years. I lay on my back, and stare at the ceiling, feeling more trapped than ever. I close my eyes tight to block out the world, and this time in the darkness and safety of myself, I let the tears come. I let them wash down my face. But I don't make a sound. Not once. I don't even acknowledge that it's happening. It just is. I think about how I hate everyone who always asks me why. Why am I sad. Why I am crying. Why I am anxious or why my parents fight, or why my grades aren't the best. Why. Why. Why. What they don't understand is that somethings just are. 

I just am. You just are. Things just happen and for some reason, no one seems to be able to accept that. Everyone seems to have this deep, unyielding, burning desire for why- for an explanation. And I don't care about the why's, or the how's. Things are simple. People are simple. But their over thinking twists and warps reality. Makes them believe it's everyone else's fault that their life has gone to s**t. Or that it's the teachers fault they failed. Or come up with all these ridiculous reasons as to why someone might have possibly broken up with them. But the truth is, it's all on us. It's our mistakes and our choices that put us where we are, and we can't handle that, so we blame someone else. And that's what keeps me awake at night. It's all on me. It's no one's fault but my own. All the pressure of things. All of the unknowns....

Then again, maybe, it's just the ticking of the clock, so loud in the silence, that keeps me alert on the cold nights I so desperately want to spend asleep and oblivious. 

Author's Note

I didn't go back and edit this, I just got in the zone and wrote about last night/this morning. So ignore spelling/grammar errors.