Now I just sleep beneath your floor, and my ghost just tries to keep you warm

Every single day is another thing I remember, and another thing I try to forget. And I'm not even really sure where I'm taking myself anymore. All I know is I'm taking myself away from everything I can't keep holding on to. Admitting it to myself was what felt like the hardest part, but telling you was something I've never done before.

I just can't keep doing what I'm doing to myself. I've grown used to our pattern, and now it's all I can look out for. It's the hope of walking away with you still here. It's the thoughts of me leaving or staying when high school is over. It sounds so selfish, and complicated when I say that I need you now more than ever before. But I do. And that's the whole reason I'm trying to move on. The way I feel is still so heavily attached to you, you're still a part of my every day even when you're not around, but the fear of you not staying is getting more and more scary.

I'm terrified. Because if I keep killing different parts of me to make things better, how is it that I'll be happy in the end? And I've always told myself that if you're in love, then nothing else should matter, because it's enough. But now I'm thinking.. it's really not anymore. No matter how much I want it to be. Every single part of us was beautiful. I wouldn't take any of it back. I will never agree or believe that you walked away everytime because you didn't care or love me enough. But I will always believe that it meant something. Maybe there's things we've both been looking past.

'Because how I ever got to you, I have no idea.
It's like some secret door, well it just appeared.
So, no matter what I do from now on with my time.
you will always stay here in my mind.
I am certain of this and I am not certain of anything.

So I want to get myself attached to something bolted down,
So that these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing me around.
From when I land to when I leave
there is enough time to sleep and sing.
I keep running around, when all I want is to lay motionless.'

You've got the perfect disguise, and you're looking okay.

"He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next."

Everyone's a building burning, with no one to put the fire out.

It's weekends like this that make me not sure how I'm supposed to feel anymore. Staying put in my house is something that I never liked to do. But I've loved it. I haven't left my basement and I've been with my brother the whole time. It's weird whenever Matthew and I spend time together, because we don't much. But each time we do I feel much closer with him than I did before. It's been so nice having him here. Bryant came over last night and I mostly just watched them drink and talk as we watched a couple movies. I've had friends stopping by for visits, and my dad coming down to check on me every couple minutes. This morning Alyssa woke me up and showed me the camera she bought for David. We talked about the trip, and ways to give him the camera by surprise. And I've spent the whole day full of excitement and happiness with the way things have turned around. The crying and the threats happening just a couple nights ago, didn't matter.

But tonight when I woke up I was still in a daze from the pain medication. And when I looked around the basement I didn't see Matthew next to me anymore, I just heard stomping upstairs. He came down and started gathering all of his things. When I tried talking, he wouldn't respond to me anymore. You can feel his anger whenever these type of situations happen and all of a sudden it felt like he hated me too. My dad who's out of town had called him and told him he's not allowed to stay at the house anymore. When he asked why, he said it's because Susan doesn't want him here. I pulled out my phone and stepped into the guest room, "Dad why does it matter? Why can't you make your own decisions? Is this what you want too? Or just Susan?" He hangs up on me. I hear Matthew on the phone with him now, repetitively yelling, "Fuck you." Susan is getting ready to go because she's just too uncomfortable.

I'm alone down here and so I try to make myself go back to sleep but I wake up to a text from Alyssa.
"I can't do this anymore, Michael. David's having his withdrawls again, and he's telling me to leave."
"Just leave for the night and let things calm down."
"They won't calm down. It's always like this. It always will be."
"It's not you, it's his addiction. It's not you."
"He's texting your dad right now to tell him we're not coming on the trip. I love you guys but I can't keep doing this. I can't keep trying to save your brother."

Matthew comes back down in anger and reads texts my Aunt Bee is sending him. It's always how our family is. Messages through messages through messages. From my step mom, to my dad, to us, it's never like it's supposed to be. My aunt bee says,
"Your dad says you can sleep in the Garage room. He'll talk when he gets home."
We're wondering, why can't he say this on his own?
"He says he's sorry, but he has to make his marriage work, too."
Matthew laughs and points his middle finger towards the roof where we hear Susan still walking around. I told him, "I hate this. It's never ending with all of us." We started talking about David. I told him I'm scared every day of him ending his life. Matthew told me about their phone call that night that put all of this fear into me. He said he never told anybody about it. When David was on his way up to the mountains, he called Matthew crying and mumbling his words, telling him he didn't know what to do anymore. They've never been close like that. I never would imagine Matthew being the last person he would call. But that's what scares me the most, it was so close to happening. And when Alyssa's telling me he left their house again tonight, it's all that is running through my mind. I stay still and I stay quiet, because I'm not allowed to know. More secrets, more hidden things that nobody knows I know. Matthew picks up his books and his work, puts on his back pack, and says, "I'll see you later." Susan walks out the door to go to her sisters, and I'm alone.

So much build up and breakdown for something that should feel free. I don't want to go on this trip anymore. I don't want to put hope into my family anymore. I'm making myself sick off of their problems, and I'm losing hope in anything staying stable. My life is starting to feel like a lie. And the silence in my house is unbearable. I want to call David to make sure he's okay. I want to call my Mom without her being worried sick. I want to walk upstairs and grab my bottle of pills. I'm starting to care less about myself being okay, and wishing everything and everyone else around me could be instead.

It's where they create the ghosts

"You think I'm crazy? And if I say I'm not crazy, that hardly helps does it? That's the genius of it. People tell the world you're crazy. And all your protest to the contrary just confirms what they're saying."
"I'm not following you, I'm sorry."
"Once you are called insane, then anything you do is just a part of your insanity. Reasonable protest, or denial. Fears. Paranoia."
"Survival instincts are defense mechanisms."

"Do you know how pain enters the body, marshel? Do you?"
"It depends on where you hurt."
"No. It has nothing to do with flesh. The brain controls pain. The brain controls fear, empathy, sleep, hunger, anger, everything. What if you could control it?.. Recreate a man so he doesn't feel pain, or love, or sympathy. A man who can't be interrogated because he has no memories to confess."
"You can never take away all of a mans memories. Never."

"Let me ask you, any past traumas in your life?"
"Yes. Why? Why would that matter?"
"Because it's your reason you lost your path. Your reason for your insanity. So when they commit you here, your friends and colleagues will say of course he cracked. Who wouldn't have?"
"They can say that about anyone. Anyone at all."
"The point is, they're going to say it about you."

"I can get you off this island."
"Haven't you heard anything I said? You'll never leave here."
"I have a friend, I was with him yesterday but we got separated, have you seen him?"
"Marshal, you have no friends."

Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh

When I clocked off at work last night, there was already a million things running through my head when I walked out the door. I was thinking about David and Alyssa, and them breaking up. I started thinking about our perfectly planned tripped to Mexico with the family, and all the things I planned to do with them, and how that's being broken apart now. How even if they do stay together for the trip, we're not even going to feel like a family. Alyssa will be crying, and David will be yelling, and Matthew will be getting drunk. My Dad will be trying with everything he has to make us a normal family. I can picture it all now. And it's like the setting just isn't right for us. This cruise in the hot weather, with all these people around us that are actually happy. And maybe it's just me that can't picture these things. Maybe it's just me that thinks that seems out of our place.

My whole way home all I could hear was crying and heavy breathing over the phone, and everything was starting to feel like a nightmare. I dial your number and after I leave a message I start to forget why I was even calling. I just felt like I needed it. When I came inside it was silent, and it was empty. And I knew what I was going to do. I'm starting to feel dead both ways now. I feel dead all of the time. I left my house with my room full of smoke, and a bottle hidden in my closet. And I drove because that's the only thing I do now when I want to be alone. I drive away and see where I take myself. I went through Cammishas front door and stumbled into her room. And I stood there. Her sitting on her bed listening to music, and me standing in the door way with a wet face, glazed eyes, and slurred words. She hugged me tight and she asked me, "Why do you do this?" I said, "It's too scary without."

I felt like a monster. As she spoke to me, everything was spinning. I felt out of my body and out of my mind. The same conversations that have been going through my mind for days were coming outloud. I told her I can't give anything up because it feels like I'm killing myself that way. And no matter with or without these things I've made myself live off of, I am always suffering. I'm a sick, sorry, and misserable person. I don't feel like anything in my life is meant for me anymore. Nothing is mine, and if it is, it's slipping away. I've learned all these things, I've told myself how to live, but I can't even follow my own words. All I have are my thoughts and myself.

And no matter where I fall asleep, I am always waking up in the same place.
A pounding head and a heavy heart.