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Unsafe

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Written by Amethyst Mare (Arian Mabe)

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An experimental piece of fiction.

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Lock the doors, check the windows. Can he get in? Am I safe? Oh, no... No, no, no. Nowhere is safe. I can't think that. Stay on alert, high alert, that's the only way to stay safe.

But I'm not safe, I'm never safe. I knew that before, I know that now. It shouldn't be how it is, this driving pound of my heart claiming my attention, twisting fear and anxiety intertwining with one another, a tango of death dragging me down and down and down. It's a dance, don't you know, but that's not how it goes, around and around and around she goes.

Broken lies, dangerous patterns - wait, is that right? There's no way to tell, not really, not when my head is so twisted, warped and desperate for something that I can't even put words to. My chest is tight and, yet again, I'm up on my feet, pace, pace, pacing - pacing just to keep time. Maybe it'll make time pass quicker until I can put my head down in bed again, the solace in sleep some kind of respite, except for the nightmares.

Breathe. Don't breathe. What does it fucking matter anymore... Being safe does not mean to breathe and even the passage of oxygen into my lungs is futile. That won't leave me safe. It just keeps me going a little while longer.

He said I lied. He said I was a psychopath. Then why am I so afraid? Why do I fear the dark and why does my heart pound? Why do I shake and why am I going around, oh, yet again, checking doors, checking windows, trying to be safe, safe, safe?

There is no safe here when the demon lies in my own head. He simmers and curls, a long tail with a pointed tip jammed straight into my heart. He knows he's here to sow rife and distrust, the fear, the panic, the anger, the pain. It's all going to come whether I like it or not, because I'm on this ride now and it must be ridden out to the end, whether that is a sudden stop or a slow decline. Either way, I'll get through it, but that still doesn't mean that I'm safe.

Bitch. Whore. Cunt. Control freak. What more words can be thrown at me? Are they words or are they identifiers? Are there other things rising up in the midst of the lies? Or are they glimmering with a vein of truth, life blood gushing out, soaking sofa, soaking carpet, soaking the parapet of the castle that, in a day, could all come crumbling down.

I learned to laugh and I learned to love. I learned to trust and there was someone there to catch me, to pull me up and hold me close, to make me realise that this could be left behind. If not for the seeds that remained, the poison sown, maybe I'd be whole again now, not curled up in the agony of despair.

Don't go outside. There's bad things outside. Look over your shoulder, always be on guard. The bogeyman is coming for you.

Coming, coming, coming... He's coming for you.

A masked face and a knife in hand - you think that that is what I'm truly afraid of? No, it's of waking up and finding myself right back in the nightmare, fear curling through, a sinuous swathe of wisping smoke, finding the cracks in my defences when they've already broken through. Twisting and turning, casting eyes over fairy lights and wishing to die, for that's the only way out the nightmare, the blood-curdling scream of my last, rasping breath echoing in my ears.

You never needed to wear a mask when you had so many faces, a god standing above all, a king without a name. People have no status and have no place but you carved out your own, all to control, and I wonder that that control could be so abused, taken and manipulated while you sit there with a crown of false jewels on your head.

And what of the rest of us? What of those left unsafe? Checking and checking and checking... Our stories were written by they weren't the truths and the lies spinning webs either, a sickening tap-dance of cruelty playing and toying. When did you get bored? Did you ever get bored? Are we unsafe to you, maybe because we were the ones that escaped?

Gone, gone, gone. I may be unsafe but I'm gone, so very long gone. I may check the windows but I'm gone. I may jump at the drop of a hat but I'm gone. My mind plays tricks on me but I'm gone. And that's what really broke you.

Live, die... What does the rest of the world care now? We'd be safer if you'd die a little sooner.

Hustle, grind... We want you in the grave, worms picking clean your bones, though the memory of those bones is still too much. Would we that you had never existed at all to make us unsafe, threats and cries winding into our psyches until there's no way to tell the difference between what is us and what was you, is you, is still you.

Break the bonds, cut the ties. Safe or unsafe: I am who I am. That's all I ever needed to be, not to be better, to be someone else, to be unsafe in my presentation or exasperation of myself.

It's safe but not safe. Getting safer, bit by bit. Further and further I go, but I can't speak for the others crawling out from under your throne. We know no names and know no other but we must continue, for the only way is onward. That's if, of course, we want to find safety, which can come, bit by bit, slowly, slowly.

Check the locks, shut the windows. It's not safe to be out quite yet. Heart pounding, skin sweaty, clinging and cloying, goose bumps layering arms.

A prickle. A tingle. Stay safe, it warns. The bogeyman is still out there.

Not safe yet.

But soon.

Very soon.