Looking In

He was always smiling; the reason for people to not notice how much he was suffering on his own. There were those people--so stupid, so blind and too afraid to look inside. He needed someone. All he was asking for was a little affection to help him understand. Because he could not understand the ways of life. And he was afraid to go through it alone. Because alone, he was lost. Just a hand to hold. Just a shoulder to rest upon. He was just asking for someone to walk with him. He was always smiling and making other people laugh. Keeping busy on other people's troubles breathes life into him. It was the only thing holding him down. Outside, he was alive; no one would ever think he was keeping this void inside that shell. He seemed so good at taking care of others. No one even thought of him. No one even asked. This world could be a lot of things and could bring more with it. Among them are the inevitable sufferings. But his was brought about not of the world around him but himself. Every day, he goes home---goes upstairs and it all starts there. A little time to stare at nothing in particular. A little time to think to end up with nothing. A little time. There was only so much time. He rises from the bed and walks to the bathroom, closing the door and locking it behind him. Out of his pocket, he pulls out this small but sharp blade. For a little while he thinks it over, looking at himself in the mirror. He stares but could not tell if what he sees was really hiself. He doesn't seem to recognize his own face. He wonders and thinks. He stares and thinks. Sometimes, he feels like he really isn't living his life--- He's merely looking into it. Looking into a fragile glass box. And so he stares still. Thinks but does not comprehend. And he ends up with a blank. Another void clustering---building a new space. And he stares still. And stare still. When he feels like he finally has enough, he turns and sits on the bathroom floor, resting his back on the hard, cold wall. He still holds the blade in his fingertips and looks at it. A little thing. What could you do? He raises it to eye level, until it falls back to his left wrist. It draws a line across it, in its tail is a trail of red. He feels the sting but it immediately leaves him. He does it for the second time. And a third. And a fourth. On and on until he has made a graffiti on hiself. A beautiful art with only one color. He never liked the color red bed but he loved to see the crimson blood. There was this releasing excitement he feels with every trickle he feels running through his hand to the ends of his fingers. More blood. More blood. The emptiness was lost with each increasing pain on his wrist. The nothingness does not matter anymore for there was this pain he clearly understands. The reason for its being, its origin. And the only thing that exists was the pain---something clear and certain. The pain. At least there was something he understood. Why has it come to this? What can one do when the person fights his own? An invisible foe you could not lay your hands on? An inescapable nightmare you could not be free of? What would anyone do if you were the one looking in the glass of the other person's life and see how much the other fights to grasp and claim sanity and life? He was always smiling. But she was also suffering. Will you take the chance to look inside?