The Box

I think everyone has something they hide away in a box.

I'm ready to talk about what's in mine. I'll start slow.

I used to think that I'd never grow out of the habit of giving all of myself. But, every time it goes wrong, I feel like it becomes harder to do that. And I know the reason. It’s fear. I’m scared, because my motivation has been missing for some time. I used to focus with a single-minded devotion to whatever I did, be it a conversation, an assignment, just life in general. And now I find myself out of touch with everything, and I just don’t get it. I feel like…it both happened overnight and it didn’t. The suddenness startled me, somewhat. In the middle of anything, I’ll lose interest, and drift. My mind will just…pull back, for lack of a better term. I couldn’t tell you what I think about. I don’t know. I’m concerned for myself. But, it’s like a third party concern. Like, I hope it works out, but it won’t affect me in the slightest if it doesn’t. And I wonder where my real emotions are. Because when I’m like this, everything’s under suspicion. Nothing seems right, and assuming the worst is the only way to be. This critical apathy isn’t me. This isn’t who I am! This isn’t…who I am at all.

I want to live as if I’m real.

I remember this one time, I was home alone and I just broke. That was real, but I think that was where it began too. I recall, stumbling into my room and collapsing in front of my mirror to watch myself. My face blotchy and contorted, my torso shaking from the force of my sobs, the despair written in wet tracks down my face. I felt it, and I didn’t. Whatever motivated me to go to my mirror wanted to observe. And it’s me, but it’s not me. I’m not talking like this is a bad horror movie and I’ve been taken over by some supernatural force. I’m talking like, I feel like there’s a part of me I don’t really know about, and it’s separate from the face I display to the rest of the world. Underneath the mask, there’s nothing but a void.

Is this what it means to be a psychopath?

The rest of me both wants to accept it, and lock it in a box in the far reaches of my mind. I feel like I can learn from it, but I feel if I give in and stop fighting, I’ll forget what it was like to care all the time. How can you stop caring? How can you let your heart grow cold? I don’t want that to happen. But I catch myself wondering, would it be so bad? To not let everything affect me so badly? 

To accept or reject, that is the question.

One day, I’ll face it. I’m not ready. I’m not sure If I’ll ever be. Somehow, I think I’ve already lost. It doesn’t have a voice. It doesn’t feel. It’s just…there. I feel it watching. The only thing I know is this: it wants out.

For now, I’ve locked it up tight.

But sometimes, when I’m not on guard, I hear the box rattle. Violently.

And’s it’s in those moments I realize the futility of adding another lock, wrapping another chain, of wondering what it is I’m fighting so hard to ignore. In my heart of hearts, I know what’s in there.

Nothing.

I gave too much.

I’ve ran out of whatever it means to feel.

So why does my nothing want out?

Because, psychopaths don’t like to suffer alone. They despise the fullness that emoting brings, even if the emotions are a flood that could drown you. I don't take enough from others to satisfy this...need to feel. 

And I don't want to. I'm not a psychopath, yet. I'm going to contain it as long as possible. But I know what's happening. It's inevitable.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Nothing always becomes something.

My something is resentment.

And I've hidden it away, like everyone else. 

In a box.