text: This rope is irritating. The smallest of spines imperfecting through the remaining uniform coils. I tighten it regardless. It begins to feel as if it’s strangling the breath out of me.... No it’s choking the winds so desperate to relieve me. I gaze below and notice a chair. It’s thrown across my feet. Pathetically fallen to the support of its head instead of it’s four purposed stumps. The room begins spinning. Around my eyes I see the freezer... The refrigerator... The Camaro... No, I’m spinning. Tight circles and unsprung coils of emotions. My eyes are weak now; my mind hazy. Thousands of needles are stabbing at my brain; or are they piercing through my skin and skull? I do not know. My glasses remain athwarted the bridge of my nose yet my vision is now hazy, blurred from reality. My mind and body have become faded, numb to this idea, numb to this reality. Silence falls across the thought that plagued my dreams. Everything turns to emptiness. What is this? Is this nothingness? What is nothing? It is neither warm nor cold. Neither loud nor silent... No, it is silence. A deafening silence. It is silence so loud it pierces my eardrums. It sounds desperate. Sad and emotional. It sounds like my mother’s tears falling upon the ground of which imprisons her kindred spirit. It disgusts me. With one selfish act, I have caused so much pain. The thought of the terrible sensations, of the one who cares the most for me, is going through is enough to make me wish I could clutch my chest. My lungs are a tighter than my chest. My throat is a clogged drain. I was suffocating before but now I am choking. I try to open my eyes but all I see is black. My body is burning up yet I am so cold. Eyes so frantically darting side to side begging to see the light. A light of hope begins to appear in the distance taunting as if it were about to run. I begin to chase after the bright spec. My life depends on this light. The future of mother depends on this light. I want to sprint but I can’t for these is no ground upon which to set my feet. I try to swim but this is space isn’t liquid. I seem to be floating. I’m being taken towards the light. I want to reach this sense of hope so badly but in the back of my thoughts I know it to be a lie. Panic is starting to set in. This light isn’t my salvation; it is my destruction. I try to turn back but there I can’t turn away. I try harder and harder; the panic and anxiety is intense. I can feel nothing but total despair for I cannot turn away from what I now know to be my entrance to whatever afterlife awaits me. I feel even hotter now. I’m so hot I can feel my skin melting. I’m melting into a pool of cool. This heat is so cold it feels vulnerable. With eyes now shut so tight, I can feel the light enveloping me. It’s cold and wet. Why is it wet? Terror is my fate. I know this to be true yet curiosity is a cunning enemy. I open my eyes finally to see the ceiling of my bedroom. My chest is rapid. My body a pool of sweat. There’s barely a crack of light coming through the window of which my bed is pushed against. The curtain is rough and torn near the top. I tilt my head to see the glow of red. There are 17 bars of red arranged to read 5:58. An audible sigh is barely breathed but enough to inform me that this is in fact real. No longer dreaming or actually dead. Marth Cohen survived again. Another terror that dragged him through every puddle of mud ever to form in his mind. Constant thoughts of how worthless he perceives himself. Thoughts of suicide are common for this soul. His life a gift he wishes would be snuffed out. He doesn’t know why. No one can ever know exactly why. These thoughts have no reason. They just are. Marth struggles to regain comfort. He tosses and he turns. He finally rests on his side staring at the clock. Another Friday rears its head. For Marth his entire school life has been nothing but pain. Tales could be told of how vile this midwestern town has treated Marth. He never liked it but he never spoke up about his treatment either. He always thought it was better to accept his life without fight than trouble others around him. Being in the graduating class has been by far the worst yeah of torture for him to endure so far. Tears started to form near the ducts of his eyes. It was almost over. In two months Marth would be rid of that school and rid of this town. Marth held back the tears forming and closed his eyes again. He would soon be escaping from this torment. The only problem with this idea was that he was wrong. It is only getting worse. It’s only the start of how bad living in this place is going to get.