Deathbed

My cell hadn't rang in days. I no longer cared where it was.

I lay looking at a wall four inches from my face trying not to think. The thin covers kept me warm enough and as I stared at the wall, committing my entire being into a single-hued landscape of gray-blue paint, inescapable memories pulled me back.

It had only taken one rushing instant to break thirty-seven years of keeping my worst thoughts on the inside. Words had exploded from my mouth with power, fury, and scorn as sharp as any sword. What the fuck do you know? None of you know anything. You certainly don't know me. You kept me around to feel better about yourselves and I let you do it. I don't need that anymore and I don't need you.

Word traveled from friend to former friend and after a time, I was truly alone. I hated them but mostly I hated me.

Staring hard into the wall, I willed myself to become one with that storm cloud colored oblivion all while something deep down inside me shrieked madly in a solitary confinement of my own making.