I often find myself sitting alone, smoking and staring at a blank word document while my very soul screams in agony for me to put down letters and form them into cohesive thoughts - stories, poetry on the rare occasion, and sometimes just to rant. In the times my isolation seems never ending, even with a friend sitting a foot away I cannot reach out.

Sometimes I think something is wrong with me.

I look at my life and feel heart wrenching regret as I move forward day after day, making in my eyes the same mistakes. Always the same mistakes.
So desperate to talk and have my voice heard, and wishing with every fiber of my being that when I'm asked if I'm okay and I respond with a smile and say "Fine" that they'll know I'm lying through gritted teeth. But they never seem to, and they just nod and turn away and inside I scream and berate myself. To just reach out and get help, for someone to reach down into the pit that is my mind and grab my hand and pull me forth.

Even at those times of my personal weakness where I seem to be drowning though I inhale nothing but pure air, I reach out... just holding out a hand and I receive nothing. I break... another crack, another mar on the surface that so many of my friends seem to think is simply unbreakable. Never willing to listen as I tentatively try to broach a subject that for me is a pinnacle of my inner issues and even now... writing this. I can barely speak the words, but to write them out where emotion often does not translate and it just sounds so... whiny.

I wish I could force myself to say everything here; perhaps it would help. But for me... writing only serves as a temporary release from my thoughts, a few minutes where the tide recedes and does not drown me. But always, it returns and I tread water in a vast ocean until my muscles cramp from exhaustion and I start to drown. Sometimes, when I need it the most he'll notice, and he'll grab at me and tread the waters for me but so often, so much often, my friend will not listen, assumes an intent I do not have, nor have ever expressed. It makes the desire to slip under the waves stronger but I don't... I can't... I won't? Because he drowns too and I have to hold him afloat.

Sometimes it seems I have a partner who will willingly jump into this pit that is me and keep me from digging myself further under but always, always do I end with the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth, as my hope turns to ash and I just choke. Never do I seem good enough and I know it is just me... it isn't them. I simply not good enough. And I hate myself. I loathe me,  but no one can really understand and no one truly wants to. I do not blame them.