My Pen, And My Choice
Life is hard, and the choices we make are harder still.
All he could do was pour his heart out onto the page. So few truely understood the depth of his pain, his longing. So he wrote it down in the notebook with the black cover. It was his chronicle. He lived with pain his whole life. Raised under the thumb of a verbally abusive stepfather whose tongue could dish out more wounds than his fists ever could. Questioning and berating and belittling and crushing his stepson's worth, dreams, ambitions, thoughts, hopes, fears. Nothing was ever good enough for that man. He saw himself as the only one right in a world of incompetance. The boy saw him as the embodiment of everything he never wanted to be. Arrogant, spiteful, cruel, uncaring. The boy began to build walls around himself to keep the pain at bay. But in later years those walls would serve hold it in instead. In that boy's childhood, a small corrupted seed was planted. That long ago boy's mother hadn't had it much better. Cowed and afraid of her husband's violent temper and scathing words, but she still found it in herself to be a light in that darkness, though small and wavering, easily eclipsed by rage and words. The sound of pen scratching on paper paused, then went on. School had been, if it were possible, even worse. The cruel taunting of his peers, the fights, and the loneliness had caused the boy's inner turmoil to grow. Unable to make friends because of his own emotional isolation, he suffered in silence, unable to relate to others. That tainted seed gave bloom to a terrible flower all-consuming in it's horrid potential. The years turned that flower into a dark garden in his soul, corrupting all aspects of his life. Then it was over. Dropping out of high school in his last year and weathering the storm of his parents divorce, that boy, now a man, had dared to hope. Hope that now, finally, he would see the sun. And he did. And it was that glimpse of warmth that made the next tempest so much worse. He had seen what had been snatched away from him after so much struggle. He had met a girl. Worse, he had fallen in love. At that point he still believed things were still turning for him. It was a cruel twist of the knife. He gave everything of himself for this girl. Gave up the few things that gave him joy, gave him sanctuary against the dark, so he could build a new life with her. And all the pain in that horrible garden was locked away to fester. That glimpse of the sun quickly vanished behind the clouds once again. His relationship went on for two years. It was wonderful at first. He relished the love he felt and in the love he thought the girl felt for him. But it was all a lie. It turned out that all she ever wanted from him was money, sex, and a source of entertainment. Mind games were her specialty. Vicious teasing and emotional torment were her idea of amusement. And yet all he could do was grin and bear it. He had fooled himself into believing that they were happy together. By the time it had all imploded, they were living together and raising a child, a baby boy. And that baby boy was all of the things the girl was not. Sweet, innocent, wonderous, beautiful in his light. He and the girl split apart amidst fighting and outpourings of true feelings. The girl had never loved him, in fact hated him. Wished him dead. Wanted never again to see him. She took the child and left, leaving him a wreck. The garden, shut away for so long, had become an impenetrable forest, filled with demons and monsters and the frenzied gnawing of bones in the dark. He was a husk, swamped once more in his old friends self-hatred and insecurity, believing he never deserved to be happy, living in a world of constant and crippling anxiety. He had forgotten the things he used to take comfort in. He had forgotten what it was like to even feel comfort. Then, against all odds, a moment of grace. A meeting, a suggestion. A chance at true freedom. But he still was unsure if there was any hope for him. It was time to make a choice. With a soft sigh, he set his pen aside and gently closed the notebook on the last tear-stained page. Idley, he pondered his options. He could muster what was left of his strenght and struggle on into the trees, searching once again for that lost glimpse of the sun, hoping against hope that he would not be consumed before he found it, and that things would get better. The other choice was much simpler. It lay on the table not far from the notebook. Cold steel and a gleaming edge. He contemplated the second option for a long time, thinking how easy it would be to leave all the pain behind him forever. He stood up slowly from the table, his eyes never leaving that tempting object. And made his choice. He walked away, leaving the knife behind. This was going to be a long journey, but maybe... just maybe... he could pull through.