Help

SOS
Somebody
come down here
and save me
immediately.
I am stranded
on an island
called “the rest of my life.”
Last night I went to sleep
as a child.
I was a beautiful boy named Brandon.
I loved myself.
I loved the world.
Every door
was waiting for me down the hall.
No passageway was locked.
I could go
anywhere
everywhere
but now
i’m here.
Help
Last night I went to sleep as a child
and this mid afternoon
I awoke
as someone
I never thought I would see.
I’m staring at a screen
with the faint glare of my
reflection
staring back at me.
Help
Oh my god
Help
Is this
hell?
To have every possibility
for-never-more?
I look a certain way
and whether I like it or not
that is what I will look like
for the rest of my life.
Even worse
this’ll be
the look of me at my peak
for only a couple more years
then it’s straight downhill from there (for me).
My chosen life
my chosen relationships
my chosen bed
is not the one I fell asleep in
last night as that
beautiful boy.
I was in a rocket ship
bed!
I could soar to the moon
and could shoot through the stars!
I woke up (this mid-afternoon)
and my blinds are all closed.
I opened them
with these
fully grown fingers
that I was oh so shocked to see (didn’t quite feel like me)
(the nails were all crusted
and wrinkles were starting to peek)
and beyond the blinds the sun
didn’t shine
for any reason
except to be able to see.
What’s the point of daylight
if the suns rays don’t
put a sparkle in your eye?
Is this what death feels like?
Are there no signs of sparkles
in eternal darkness?

I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge
no longer needing to put a chair in front to reach
the top shelf.
But it’s not
sweets i’m searching for this mid afternoon.
I take a bubbly
bottle
so much lesser than soda
and crack it open.
It reads
“Corona”
across the front.
Why am I drinking this?
The taste feels
fouler than fizz
but the lack of sparkle in my eye
becomes less prominent
as I sink down on my sofa
thinking things I don’t comprehend.

Strings of words like
“Why didn’t she ever call me back?”
and
“I AM normal”
float across my mind.
I don’t understand what either of them mean
but as I take my fifteenth sip
of this
“Corona”
I feel the urge to cry.
Yet for the first time in my
yesterday-eight-year-old-life
my sighs stop my cries
from ever coming out.
I feel them
become buried so deep down inside
that the tears turn to ice
but i’m already cold so I
never seem to mind.
More and more thoughts float around my mind,
I’m surrounded by screens
(so many screens
phone screen
computer screen
TV screen…
they’re all floating and scrolling nowhere
endlessly)
and my fake fizzy drink
as these thoughts I don’t understand float faster through my mind.

The room starts to spin
as I realize
bottles are all around me.
My head dips to rest on the sofa
as I see a faint glimmer
of sunlight
flitter through the crack of the blinds.
The sun goes down
and darkness surrounds me.
I have nothing
more to drink
but the thoughts still won’t cease.
“He’s just better than you,
you have no talent.”
and
“If they thought you were good enough
attractive enough
charismatic enough
and not so ******* weird
they would’ve emailed you
and given you the job.”
I don’t understand
what any of these thoughts mean
but a realization strikes me suddenly…
why am I not out to play!
It’s already dark out
and I haven’t  been in my sandbox
once today!

My eyelids
droop to a close
as the image of life
slips from my sight
wondering how many nights
I’ve fallen asleep on this couch.

Wondering how
I fell asleep among the stars
in my eight year old bed
(with my beautiful eight year head
resting snugly
on my pillow
with the last words I heard
before I went to sleep being
“I love you.”)
last night
and how so many years
feel as if they’ve flown by.
I wonder if i’ll ever go back to being in them.

Suddenly a light starts to shine
from behind the lid of my eyes
and I hear a familiar voice
beckon me awake.
My
mom
says
“Brandon! Wake up
it’s time for school.”

I bolt up
with a smile on my face
with the faintest feeling of a
very bad dream
lingering inside of me.

But I don’t remember it.

It’s today!

And what a beautiful day!

Time to play!

I hug my mom
meet my friends
and live my life
for what it’s meant to be
a sandbox
for everyone to play.

I’m not in my twenties
I don’t live on my own with roommates I don’t know
I didn’t drink Corona last night alone until I passed out on the sofas foam.
I don’t have my childhood behind me with cold in my heart and no direction forward.
I’m eight.
I’m eight years old
and my world still feels like home.