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Hidden

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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Sick and tired, sick of hiding, the past of my life shaded in shrouds. Where do I go from here when the path that I wanted to lead crumbled before me, standing on the edge of a red-raw life, dripping with the blood that is and isn't on my hands?

The wind blows, pushing me back. But I can't go back - I'm here now. And I've been waiting to be here for so very long. Years, in fact. And the years, unlike the hands of a clock, can never be turned back, leading one into a false sense of what time has and has not passed.

Wait, wait, wait.

Hide, hide, hide.

It's a shame, you're a shame, should never have spoken up. It was you, all your fault, my fault, I'm the "you". So, what does this "you" do with the "her" and the steps forward that are left to take?

They don't want me to go on, no. They want me to hide. You and me, me and you, lost forever, yet I'm the one left alone, hidden in the shadows.

The underbelly of the world would be too good for me, or so they say. So they say, so they say. I stopped paying attention to what they say but the quiet in my mind opens old doors, whispering thoughts and memories clawing into an active mind where they are opened up, picked apart, inspected without written consent.

Are you insane like me?

Been in pain like me?

Control, fear, manipulation. Yet it is me, it is me, I am the one left to hide. The creator of such despair smirks and holds their head high, the important one, the one who believes themselves above everyone else. And just where has that gotten anyone at the end of the day?

No, no, no... I am sick of hiding, sick and tired. The wind catches me, lifting my hair from my neck, salt on my lips. I am here, I am real. But what am I supposed to do when no one wants me to exist, to be real when I could simply not be here?

There's a war inside my head,

Sometimes I wish that I was dead:

I'm broken.

I only heard that recently and, well, it rings true. They wanted me dead but not dead, not really, just broken. Sometimes "dead" and "broken" are just as bad as each other and can mean the same as each other. Sometimes they mean completely different things. It matters little and it matters for everything else all at once at the same time.

Be alive, be dead. They care, I care, yet both for different reasons. Isn't that funny how that happens?

Not really but, hey: if I don't laugh, I'll cry. And the edge of the cliff is calling.

Yet that cliff means exposure and I cannot shrink for it forever, the weariness of hiding pushing down on my soul. I don't want to show everyone who I am, for fear that they'll see through it to something that even I can't see, yet the lies are spread and the lies abound, twisted truths into falsehoods that have no grain of memory left in reality.

When does a truth become a lie? When it is embellished or when it is told from another perspective? Change the words and you change the truth of the same story and there are a hundred sides to a single story and then more.

I think there's a flaw in my code,

These voices won't leave me alone...

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Out, out, out. I want to listen to you no more, you demons simpering in the back of my mind. You tug me this way and that way, clawing and crying, your squalling no longer wanted here. It will be a time yet for it to simmer down but I can wait, I'm good at waiting. I've been waiting a long time to come through and shut those voices out. You may have left me broken but not for long.

The cliff calls, crumbling, trickling away into the ether. I can't see the waves and the rocks below, the gulls calling, only a black abyss. For that is the true drama of coming out of hiding, letting everyone see who you truly are, the hole in your heart forever there and the fog in your ears clouding out what could have brought you through into the light so very long ago.

Step up, step softly: they call.

But not the "they" of the past but the "they" of the future, the "they" of promise and the "they" of lightness. Bring forth the lightness in dappled groves, sunshine filtering through deciduous leaves. This barren land is no place for anyone, least of all one who has spent so many years wandering, searching, hunting for any last scrap of truth and understanding when the true understanding to be learned is that it was never there at all.

You can't reason with hate.

They'll see, one day, but that's not for me to worry about. It's not for me to allow you to live here anymore - so it is here you can and will stay! Live in the wasteland for all I care, there is no space in my heart and my head for those who sought to tear me apart.

Stepping up, stepping forward: calmly now. There's no longer anything to fear here and the broken, it is said, may always be fixed.

I hope that is true.

Time will pass and time will heal. But I shall be hidden no more.

The cliff does not beckon, it lies behind. The wind blows back my hair, teasing through tresses.

Falling, flying - what's the difference. This is the freedom that I've been waiting for. The edge has passed and I laugh aloud, on show, on display, yet simply as I am. That's all I have to be, all that I ever had to be, and, now, forever and always, that is okay.

It was always okay to not be hidden.

Freedom is sweet.

I wish I'd known that before.