atti

Alright boys and girls, tonight I've decided to end the night with a bed time story. This story, however; isn't full of heroes and damsels; epic plot twists and battles; or even a happy ending. This story is about one man. This man is so full of grief and guilt over his life that he subconsciously has to bury it deep in his mind. At first the weight is manageable. He carries it like a backpack over his shoulder, with easy strides and a head held high. Yet as the days moved forward and he kept filling throwing his problems down that hole, he noticed that it wasn't so bottomless and empty after all.

From time to time he could make out what he most hated and feared about himself, and the brief flash of that pain would cause him to panic inside his own head. He didn't believe in taking a pill, mixing a drink, rolling a blunt to solve or even forget his problems. Those solutions were temporary, unsatisfying. All of his turmoil would still be there the next morning, laying in his bed next to him.

He came to believe that life was almost toying with him, dangling hope and happiness on a string over his head, that was just out of reach. It'd get yanked back every time he could almost grasp it in his seemingly tiny hands

One day a couple years ago he had met a woman. He didn't put much thought into at first because he had been burned so many times that he couldn't bear to go through that pain again, but like most romantic people, they succumb to falling hard; and he did just that. Over many conversations he knew that he wasn't just having a physical attraction to this person, but a person one. He could see much of himself in her and the things he said made him smile and laugh. Laughter was the way to his heart and she mastered it.

As time grew, he knew his feelings were quite clear but was afraid of ruining that stable, seemingly perfect relationship they were having, even though on the surface it was a friendship with flirting seasoned in. There was nothing subtle about how he felt about her. His friends would comment on his obvious feelings for the girl, but he did not care. He hoped that she would bring it up in conversation and save him the trouble of confronting that moment, but alas he was a coward. However, she would have to be blind not to notice; not to see how much he cared for her. Time passed and his opportunity to take a chance passed with it. She began to pursue other possibilities with others and not with any amount of subtlety either. In front of him, the flirtations became more and more public until it seemed like it was a joke made for everyone's amusement except for his. The pain he had worked so hard to hide away was leering its ugly head once again and it kept him up nights. Days would drag on like months and the only ease to his pain was putting pen to paper; like music soothing the tormented soul of the phantom of the opera.

And when he thought he was getting comfortable with the fact that she was with other men and still just considering him a friend, that foundation was shaken to its core. And this was done with nothing but the opening notes of a song. He could barely get through the first lines of lyrics before his mind raced to a past that he had locked away. His heart sank and he looked to the mirror next to him, only to see a sullen and down-trodden man peering back at him. A reflection of a broken man, who was glued together with hope and good faith, broken like a record, after too much use. And now he sits, in the dark putting his pen to paper, hoping for one night he may sleep without worrying that his companion, his pain will keep him up.

Good night boys and girls, may this bedtime story never become your own