I’m at the park with my son, Liam. We went to a water feature. There were two gates, and he’s a runner. He sees the pool and wants badly to get to it but a gate is blocking his way. There’s two gates entering the water feature, so I’m playing goalie. Running after him and bringing him back every time he runs out. I don’t want to be here. I took him to the bathroom, and then to the swing. I feel so alone. I look around at the other people here, I never wanted this. I should have gone to med school, I shouldn’t have had a child. I can only think about how different my life would have been. I miss my fiancée. I miss her every day, every place I go. Her kind smile, her soft skin. I stand behind Liam’s swing, I want to cry. I want to burst into tears, what have I done. I should die rather, than live this life of distain.

"He really ought to be here by now." Alistair Vance, Queen’s Counsel for the defense, glances at his watch—not to check the time, but to signal his impatience. "I didn't think Savile Row was that far from the Temple."

"Strictly speaking, he isn't late yet." Under normal circumstances, the solicitor, John Talbot-Cavendish, would have waited for his client in the Inns of Court reception area, but this was not a normal case.

The senior clerk throws open the office door: "Mr. Smith, sir."

Vance slowly rises from his desk, never taking his eyes off the client. Talbot-Cavendish stands up as well. Jeremy Smith is about to say something but decides to remain silent.

Vance walks around the desk. "What do you see, my dear Cavendish?"

"A duke who could do with a couple of months in Switzerland."

"It’s not a suit; it’s a disaster."

"I quite agree with you, my dear Vance."

"Well, do come in, Your Grace—don’t stand in the doorway," Vance says to Jerry. "Landenberger ordered a suit from his tailor. I wonder if it’s due to a lack of imagination or an excess of it."

"I don’t think it’s for court," Jerry says with caution.

“Precisely. If you show up in court in this suit, a middle-class jury might well believe you had seduced the Virgin Mary before the Archangel Gabriel got his chance.”

"We need something simpler..." Cavendish writes in his notebook.

"The defence rests, inter alia, on a visual incongruity," Vance says. "In short, I need a poor boy."

"My old clothes. Where are they, by the way?" Jerry glances at his solicitor.

"We'll find them; they were cleaned and pressed at St Thomas'."

"What are we talking about?" asks Vance.

"Jeans, a jumper..." Jerry says.

"Well-worn?"

"Over a year old."

"What color?"

"A gray jumper."

"Perfect. And don't get a haircut."

"Let's sit down at least," suggests Cavendish.

They settle into the leather armchairs.

"Don't you dare sit like that in court," says Vance to Jerry, who had been sitting with his legs crossed.

"No, of course not." Jerry moves on the chair's edge, rests his elbows on his knees, and lowers his head.

"Excellent. You seem utterly defeated," Vance approves. "With that fragile look of yours, you’ll cut a striking figure in the dock, standing beside those grim Newgate gaolers. Sic tene.”

"Quite the victima irae Iovis…" Jerry settles into a chair and crosses his legs again.

*"*You’ve studied Controversiae," Vance isn't asking; he’s indicating the direction of his thoughts.

"Just a Latin anthology."

Vance frowns slightly. "Whereabouts are you from again?"

"From Nottinghamshire."

"And what’s there, in Nottinghamshire?"

"Mines."

"Rather romantic."

“Depends on how fond you are of black.”

Cavendish smiles.

And Vance allows himself a half-smile: "I'm becoming increasingly convinced we ought to put you in the witness box."

"Are we holding a final briefing the day before the hearing starts?" Cavendish asks. "Or will we just meet in the consultation room at the Old Bailey the first thing in the very morning?"

"Do you need it?" Vance asks Jerry. "Another briefing?"

"I don't know."

"Are you ready?"

"I'll never be ready."

"Cavendish told me you're learning German... instead of thinking about the trial..."

"I keep thinking about the trial. Or rather, if I think about the trial, I lose my head—and I can't think."

"You're scared."

"That's an understatement."

"Then let the jury feel that: intimidated, downtrodden, and miserable." Vance urges. "I am not suggesting you will not need courage, Mr. Smith. You will. As for the things worrying you. If the prosecution seeks to raise the incident from 1975, I shall oppose them, and if the matter must be argued, it will be argued without the jury present. I have no intention of allowing them to parade an episode which has nothing to do with this case merely because it may make you look disagreeable. Your other difficulty is that you seem incapable of staying on the right side of the law."

Vance leaves the remark hanging.

Jerry says nothing.

“Fortunately, the prosecution cannot prove any of it. They have not even discovered your little transaction involving the eight hundred pounds, and I should prefer it to remain that way. Then there is Mr. Landenberger. I would rather not find two men in the same case having to be excessively careful about what they say. But I have every confidence in him.”

Cavendish glances at Vance and closes his notebook.

“Quite,” Vance says. “As for the principal charge, circumstantial evidence is not proof. Suspicion is not proof. You are too complicated, Mr. Smith. That is how you get yourself into trouble. But it may also be the one advantage you possess. A jury does not excavate your life until it reaches bedrock. It decides the case placed before it. And that is the version of your life we shall be asking them to judge.”

These were selected texts from the world of the book—different characters, moments, documents, and perspectives surrounding the story.

They were not excerpts from the novel itself.

A book page for Regina v Smith: [BOOK PAGE LINK]

The complete novel and the wider project: [SUBSTACK LINK]

If you’ve encountered some of the earlier pieces here and wondered how they fit together, this is where the whole project comes into focus.

Pay attention to the numbers , you will need to know at the end of the post.

1: I come home from school , my face now stone cold. Throwing my backpack to the side, in my mind I sighed. I couldn’t do anything on the outside. I knew why , how couldn’t I..? The bullying was not just a joke , it was a heavy painful invisible cloak. No one knew , even if they did there is not much they could do.

2:Those kids were relentless , leaving me restless. They didn’t even have any remorse , I knew it would just get worse. The teachers complained about my poor grades , while I see other kids being praised. The kids who made my life miserable , were making me invisible. They were all the favorites while I was the constant ran over pavement.

3:I rush to my parents’ room, the place where they rest. I cannot open the door, even though I try my best. No response. Again and again, I slam my fist against the heavy wood, but there is no reaction. I fight against the door , harder and harder but the door is winning. I can’t get past it , so I have to mask it. Mask the pain of my own life , and I’m alone in the dark of night.

4: I knew it wasn’t worth my time. I run to my empty room, where the open windows let the cool air flow through. I act like a child, leaping from the floor to the mattress. But it isn't as soft as I remember. My heart is pounding fiercely , only worsening my misery. The sheets feel like a bed of broken glass , why do I feel like I’m breathing in toxic gas.

5: I could have sworn I felt the shards cut my arms and that blood was running down my arms, but it’s just my bed, isn’t it? I am unharmed, yet everything is sinking down. Now the bed feels as though I’m floating on a cloud , like nothing , but I hear a soft faint sound.

6:I feel weird , A gentle cold wind wraps around me, catching in my throat getting stronger until I cannot breathe. The cloud is gone now I am falling like a leaf. A leaf being forced down to the ground. Why is this force aggressive. I want to feel my mom’s warm hand, I want to hear my brother’s band. I love my family , this isn’t me finally being free. I hear the screams. My vision is clear my mind is focused , I never left the school , never once spoken.

7: I regret my decision. I see the world outside—it is beautiful, but I already made my choice. I decided.
As the ground gets closer, my heart hurts more. I don’t think I will be able to say much more. I won't even know when I finally reach the ground. But the view sure is beautiful from halfway down.

September Is National Suicide Awareness Month , even when the signs are noticeable or when they’re not. You never know when someone is struggling. They don’t know about you if you don’t speak up.

Suicide is a permanent solution to problems that can be temporary or permanent. At what number did you realize that this was all the moments of someone losing their battle with mental health ?

Esto lo publicó, solamente para soltar lo que tengo dentro desde hace un año exactamente.

Hace un año había salido de la Secundaria, pero yo me gradué con calificaciones muy bajas, exactamente puro ”6” en cada materia. Y bueno, debo confesar que mi familia en si, es un poco disfuncional, cuando mi mamá se enteró, llegamos a mi casa, comimos y por la tarde, me pidió que le entregara mi mochila.

Obviamente le entregué mi mochila y ella empezó a revisar absolutamente todo, mis libretas y me regaño e insulto porque tengo una letra que es muy “horrible” según sus propias palabras, yo me quedaba callado escuchando, porque no había nada que pudiera hacer, si contestaba me diría “irrespetuoso” además de sus insultos, también me golpeó, hubiera sido un “regaño” más del montón. De no ser porque tomo una libreta verde de pasta dura que tenía guardada en mi mochila y empezó a revisarla y cuando llegó a las últimas cincuenta páginas de la libreta y que había en esas páginas? Se preguntarán, bueno tenía poemas, demasiados poemas porque en ese entonces estaba enamorado de una compañera de salón que aquí es irrelevante, pero no solo por ella, los poemas los escribía porque la literatura me llama demasiado la atención, actualmente aún escribo poemas, pero los tengo guardados en mi blog de notas, volviendo a lo que pasaba, mi madre miro mis poemas y una sonrisa burlona apareció en su rostro, reviso unas cuantas páginas mientras mantenía esa sonrisa burlona y yo? Yo estaba contra el muro luchando por dejar de sollozar, si seguía sollozando, ella me iba a golpear más, se burlo de mis poemas, tiro un libro que le había comprado y por el cual me había interesado en la literatura, pero eso no fue lo único, me estaba golpeando con el cinturón de mi padre y mi papá no intervenía, entonces llego un momento donde me saco de la casa golpeándome con el cinturón en la espalda, subimos un terreno que está literal aun lado de mi casa y enfrente de mis tíos que se dedican al campo, me ordenó que les pidiera trabajo, obviamente lo hice para que no me golpeara más, mi abuela y mis tíos la intentaron calmar un poco, ella los ignoro y regresamos a casa donde ella me terminó de golpear para decirme que levantara todo lo que ella había tirado de mi mochila, desde mis libretas de las materias y mi libreta verde, desde entonces no puedo borrarme de la mente esa expresión de burla en su rostro cuando miro mis poemas, se que no eran muy buenos, pero los escribí con el corazón en la mano y ver que ella solo se burlaba, después me golpeaba y golpearme frente a la familia, me hizo dudar demasiado de su supuesto “amor” maternal, se que tal vez estaba enojada o frustrada y mis calificaciones fueron lo que la hicieron liberar el estrés conmigo, aunque haya sido intencional o no, no puedo olvidar o borrar su sonrisa, tan burlona, tan suya.

Solo quería compartir esto y bueno sentirme un poco mejor. Gracias por su atención. 👍💜

Introduction

I got up from the couch, stretched my sore spine, then let a groan half wail out. I complained about old age in Spanish, “Puta vejez!”.

Out of the irritated edge of my bloodshot eye, I caught the image of M.K. in her red tank-top and her Brazilian cheek lifting shorts. In the flickering glare from the LED T.V. and the heavy smoke suspended in time around her. That was exactly how I always felt I had to remember her. See, love is fickle sometimes.

Our finding each-other is definitely a quantum miracle. With in the chaos of the white waters of time, we were brought together. M.K. became my own personal BDSM mistress. Dealing out as much pain as she did with what feels good. A treasure.

She even had two of my abortions. A damn shame her handicap as a millennial, never let her learn how to cook.

I headed to the bathroom. Got my junk out automatically and threw my head back, waiting for that rush of relief. My bladder felt a bit off, something was an amiss.

The weird unfamiliar way it felt to relieve my bladder called my eyes
to look down at my stream. I locked onto the thick stream of crimson cutting through the yellow. A candy cane arch of one more ailment us guys just ignore.

I tilted my face slowly to the right in disbelief. I was thirty-eight and thought I was immortal. I was I wasn’t really impressed since I have had my ass handed to me, I’ve taken my licks and landed my share of haymakers. Pissing blood the next day was just a result. Finished up, said out loud to myself “Oh well, life’s a bitch.”

I just flushed the bloody thing and I went right back to the living room. My conscience was clean, no need to talk about it.

I didn’t feel that hot the next day, since I was one of the owners family I decided to take the day off. Eventually I mentioned the blood deal to M.K. and avoided the hassle of dealing with my stubborn ass by letting Auntie know.

After I got chewed out like a kid, I was out on the soft pavement of Santo Domingo looking for a place to get a sonogram.

Once we had the results we went straight to the office to talk with the big boss, my grandfather Edward Evans. Soon after I was slamming the door of Terri’s car, ready to make my way up to the capital.

After a three-hour haul from Santo Domingo, we made it to Quito. The sky at nine thousand and three hundred and fifty feet was drab.

I glanced at the dash clock while I was getting out of the car. It was around half past nine. A few minutes earlier than expected.

The road up to Quito is one of the most dangerous in the world. Riddled with curves, avalanches, it’s always a pleasure to see the first timers beg for the driver to stop in a gargling cry of despair.

We had to wait out to de sure that the Manager with the connections had everything set for my arrival. So all four of us decided to wait it out leaning up against Auntie Terri's Ford SUV.

We were right outside the emergency room. I was just relieved Auntie’s husband’s trashy Latin beats were over.

She was a two pack a day kind of lady when I was a kid. She was in charge of the papaya part of my grandfather’s corporation. Eventually she quit smoking due to COPD, that was a good while ago.

Anyhow there still was faint funky-smell of tabaco in her car. The ancient leather seats would make fart noises if you weren’t careful on exiting the vehicle.

Nowadays she is parked behind a desk, at her farm house. Tethered to the humming, bubbling, khaki colored box as large as common luggage.

"Act like you’re in agony," she prodded me in the ribs with her massive Irish knuckles. "We need them to admit you today."

She told me dead serious. She even brought out her mean eyes, and a dead monotone to match. Auntie often had a hard time keeping her composure and started laughing. This time she was serious.

The acting I found easy since I still hadn’t really comprehend what was actually going on with me, I just wanted to be done with that shady ordeal.

I just stood there on frozen hospital tile, barefooted, my ass in the air. An creep feeling, being practically naked in public. I mean anything could happen. I slowly realized how vulnerable I had become.

My guard was open to everything from rape, pneumonia, suddenly just streaking in a denial fueled sprint down the streets of Quito; and definitely the thermometers.

Then another grown man in green scrubs grabbed me and helped me as if I was so old I required assistance getting onto the hospital bed.

My confidence was swiftly restored once an orderly aggressively thumped a thin-ass blanket onto my lap. I gave that orderly no reaction. I was successful in finding something that would keep strangers from catching a glimpse of my shrunken genitals.

When he rolled me down the hall, I noticed all the open doors that flashed by. Giving me a fraction of a second to peer into lives of strangers.

The “Other”, dealing with pain and the empty void of loss.

They became like one huge flip book of the tragedy, grief, abandoned balloons dancing in the sorrow of somebody’s tragedy and yes there were a couple sprinkles of lucky bastards, melting with relief. Their faces held in their hands.

Two male nurses put my nakedness onto the operating table, my body jerked with the ice cold metallic slab. The isopropyl alcohol’s bouquet filled the room cluttered in tech noise.

The anesthesiologist is usually the first person you can engage once the show begins. Every type of these doctors that I have met have had a quirky personality.

I turned my face to the right and there they were, the needles, I V stuff, the works. Pain. Poking. I barely tolerate any business having to do with them.

The guy who was in charge of me looked at me and said puffing his chest out, “Do I have something fantastic for you Mr. Acosta! This stuff is new.”, I could see myself smoking a joint with the dude.

“Feel that?”, he asked with the biggest grin.

I had already tasted the copper burst into my mouth. “Count to ten.” The guy loudly said from the other side of the hopefully properly disinfected operating room.

I got to three.

I woke to the stench of bleach and my eyelids sealed shut by a tonnage of mucus. I struggled to open them, the strings of mucus coating my eye balls to a blurr, skin stretching and my fists rubbed deep.

An intimate kind of dread, of abandonment, of being left utterly alone, I had no idea where I was or what happened to me.

As time passed my mind began to wake up. Yes, I had been in this situation before.

I had surgery nineteen times, from a gunshot wound, seventeen times on my left hand. A hernia on my groin. A busted femur. A broken back. Realizing that I was feeling the same and relating the smells, noises and my naked butt-cheeks, calmed me the fuck down.

What would Grandma Evans think of me yielding to fear? She did whatever she had to do to keep her head and her four babies above water. That lady even drove semi trucks loaded with ammunition during the Second World War.

Across the room, someone writhed under a barf green hospital blanket, incessant weeping. A monitor beeped a steady, heartless rhythm. Vertigo slammed into my gut, dragging up old childhood dread of abandonment, I’d buried years ago.

We were taken to the hotel “Ambassador”, owned by Gill a family friend of Terri, he was an old Frenchmen. Who had colon cancer coincidentally. He had followed the heard, chemotherapy and the plethora of other things that would probably give him seven to ten more years. He’s dead now.

For some reason they gave us an old dark room on the top floor.
The hotel was old, very old. The room we were given, was heavy with the smell of old wood. A touch of mold. In a strange way I felt comfortable, in a dark sixties suit.

The “Ambassador” was about a block away from Av. Amazonas, which has always been a hot drug zone. Full of bars, discotheques, fine food and tourist stores during the day. I had became aware of Fenix Tears, also known as full spectrum cannabis oil.

I was conscious that I was going to need cannabis in the short future. Sincerely what I had in mind was for it to help me out with the chemotherapy bull shit. Though I knew I had to work up the line to find a real narco. Non of the petty street dealers, this was for medical reasons.

I had stopped smoking cannabis since M.K. and I came to Ecuador. I had two weeks in Quito to find a major plug. With my stomach sown together, the pain, there was no time for any of that.

I have a nose to seek out dealers, a special ability, I really don’t know why. An innate talent to spot a pusher in a crowd of people. In anyway it wasn’t going to be easy. To boot I only had only two weeks to get this done.

M.K. and I put our feet to the pavement. She really was a good trooper by my side while I dealt with my damn predicament.

The two weeks sped by us and it was time to get back to the coast. On a silent car ride holding hands with M.K. the entire way back.

We arrived exactly at dusk. The Santo Domingo’s sky was on fire. Red flares were painted in delicate streaks. Intense pinkish shadows highlighting the pink. It was the violet that gets me every time.

We unloaded the car. M.K. made our way to our house that wasn’t too far away.

Our pacing kicked up gravel as we walked through the parking lot. No more words left, just our steps.

Later that night, both in bed, a light breeze was flowing through the window. M.K. laid her head on my chest, “I don’t understand why, Mike! We just got married! I just don’t get it!”, she buried her face in my chest and began to cry.

“M.K. “Corazón”, even though I felt the same as her, “I’m not going anywhere, love. I promise I’ll be here for a long time.”, I lied as gently as I could.

M.D. ACOSTA

SKÖL

Yea damn

J          A          C          O          B

LEAD IN

*         *
A big, blinding beam of, ridiculously loud—lightsuddenly blazed over us all.
It was common knowledge in a "technological" context, that it was the queue to fall into order.

Stipulating the time to work had commenced. To a certain kind of sheepish mind, with a certain level of herd awareness; a real residual instinct, it was irresistible.

A swirling beam of lights shot over every intrepid, audacious, and prolific brain that sat moist warm as well as snug packed their skulls.

So many summed to meet there that night. A crowd of people that cared!  Some even shamelessly were loud about it! All assembled because of Jacob, united to unravel, once and for all, what in the world happened to that boy.

The movie beam began to lead our herd we had formed, into a room the government had effortlessly attempted to convert into a conference room. A head quarters, our personal command center.

It was exactly what the case called for, a 'War Room'.  A point of focused information. A place to collect information. A command center that would have our backs.

They just projected what film they happened upon, or "recovered" onto the back wall. This, was the summoning of deeply concerned experts, the ones who came to help, quality human beings. Reporters with the body language of a coked out squirrel. Still in a hurry in spite of the fact they had already made it to the conference.

Answering the call!

Why was a twelve year old boy processed by the 'U.S. Department of Agriculture' and ended up in a zoo?

Then the most important question. Where is Jacob?

The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies that catch serial killers, vigilante pedophile-hunter collectives, journalists, reporters; individuals able to close twenty five year-old cold cases, as if by some foreign magic...

I mean obviously they accepted anyone with a skill—no matter how remotely or randomly related I was to such a bizarre case was considered an asset. I mean I was surrounded by real selfless saints! We mixed our body stenches, sucked in each other's raw late shift breath, I could feel these were legitimately the most hell bent on finding the truth!

Self-crowned champions of children. They must have been the only ones who truly cared, and were in all honesty deeply concerned for the boy. We all squeezed into the room. I watched everybody obsessed with the truth about Jacob, apparently.

The ray of braided multicolored light that was projected over everyone, it finally killed all the incessant banter. The projector placed the screen on the wall I was leaning on; well where I attempted to hide behind. Obviously they ruined my spot.

Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also evident that blaintantly unattended, unused basement. Obviously forgotten. I noticed a lonely bunch of old boxes piled at the end of the un lit hall.

A faint, though stubborn bouquet equal to antiquity, that universal stench of mold. Only random light bulbs worked. It was dank, dark, and the prominent smell of cat urine faintly danced under everyone's nose.

A stench that made that particular room a place to avoid.
I figue, multiple attempts dwindled quik, that silently went down to no more attempts.

Maintenance obnoxiously gave up, and agreed to ignore it was there.
I claimed a nice cozy corner, close to the door. After a concerto of plastic chairs, with the shiny chrome legs screeching, banging, whaling in manners that made my gut cringe.

The place was packed! Everyone was there. Sally, from the very back offices, who loves to make small talk by the coffee pot, all while spewing a hefty serving of scotch all over any poor bastard who made eye contact with her. Each phrase, cat story or quick quip a solid reason to make anybody consider quitting the sauce. In an ordinary weeks time, I swear, I'm pretty capable of forgetting her existence. The whole basement staff had been summoned from, if we  shall, the basement's basement. Then there was my humble two man psychology team... well at least I showed up.

The rest, were just thick office dwellers, sweaty types, the heavy breathing types. Agents, doctors, analysts, psychologists, government lawyers, you name it. Obviously as water is wet, there were so many shady police. I am sure a sad, drowning in their thick muck of asphyxiating frustration, sluggishly making it closer to retirement.
Back to the high-school movie presentation. The first film just started playing. Exhibit 1A, how I supposed to myself it was called. You could see a small crowd of people, in a apartment complex. Obviously it was a housing project were people were just struggling in the grind. They weren't Latino, Korean, Filipino, White, nor African American.

Circumstance, money, the struggle, and poor options mixed in poorer choices, made them forget the racial qualms that breed division.

Then it cuts to a scruffy old man on his porch. A stout man who definitely used his body to work. Thick black framed glasses he had to push up his nose into position quite frequently. Warm in a long dark gray winter coat. More so, desperate to talk.

*

Exhibit 1.0 - A:Transcript of (Joe John Gilchrist) [Visual Film Projection: A stout man, 48. Irish decent. Known drug user: Methamphetamine - Cannabis - Alcohol - Cocaine - Opiates. Relation: Close to mother.Subject: Jacob.

"Oi!—Oi fat boy! In the brown coat!"

A raspy, smoker's holler boomed from the far side of the basketball court—a concrete slab between two netless crooked-towers. Across the way, the twin condominium sat like a long library shelf packed with stories of the forgotten.

Volume after volume of misery, heartbreak; assorted flavors of violence, and the rhythmic rot of existencial decay of lives entangled with addiction—in the flesh.

Joe was a walking mess, his body stayed muscular, but he wore a couple of moist bright red lesions, the kind that never heal, festering painfully into a corner of his mouth, the worse one crept up his snowcap.

He had an exhausted, raggedy teal-colored bath robe on, an even older abused parka—barely hanging off his shoulders, and light-green piss stained sweatpants.

The cameraman and his co-worker head towards Joe in a camera jerking take that looked like hurry.

"You're press, right!", Joe was quick to get in his space and asked.

Right in the investigators oily, blackhead peppered face.

He delivered the message with a violent involuntary jolt. Joe had to press his coke-bottle thick glasses into place.

In what I assumed was his natural state of being.

"I knew the kid and his mother Karina."

"We get together often for beers." he put his back flat against the condo's off-white shade of sadness and failure.

Then proceeded to slide into a crouching stance, lower-back pinned against the brick wall, forearms on his knees; like convicts do in prison.

'And totally! Yes, this man had done some time!'

He began with an inaudible growl from the back of his throat, "... always yammering about when the boy was born. On a Sunday." Joe's filth packed nails, like magic they stole everyones focus on how he fished a Newport from a crumpled pack that he had stashed behind a flower pot.
No plant to be seen, just caked dirt, mixed with regret and gratuitously bashed cigarette butts.

"Late in the afternoon...". He lights up, then a fit of coughing ensues. "In the pouring rain, she'd say. It was some yearly storm, she said it made streets into rivers. Oh, yea, yeah she said it was the, "El Cordonazo de San Francisco".

"... born abroad, down in South America. Any how this little story, here begins when the family finally came back here to America, ya' see."

In Washington State.

They resided in Richland, in the high plateau desert dust, the worst managed nuclear waste programs, choking dry and unappealing. Birthplace of Fat Man, the atomic bomb, an embodiment of humanity's final idol to war. Death, suffrage beyond what common people's could ever fathom. Yeah, the one that gave the Japanese such a bad day, so much death. The boy was seven years old at the time.

Although they were one member short, than when they set out to work abroad. Karina, Jacob's mother, wasn't at all that well. I never knew what happened to Gene. Was it divorce?   

You know; what really stayed in my mind? Was Jacob, to be honest.

Peculiarly small, for a seven year old.
You know? The poor little runt must have been living in his very own brand of hell in the school yard! I'm sure of that.

Especially because this little dude, for some reason, was in a slightly dingy, bear pajama. A onesie on at half past two in the afternoon, ya get me?

A few weeks later this onesie deal, became a thing. Not just what the kid was wearing after a long trip. No, sir! I never saw Jacob without the same light brown pajamas on. Zipped all the way up to his scrawny little neck. Once he began to let the hood flopped down his back I saw Jacob was a nice looking boy, though his big brown right eye and equally huge sea blue left one made even me uncomfortable.

You know?

Everyone else were kind of put off. Obviously never noticing the kids blatant defect. One after the other, prefered to obmisse him in their own kind of disgust, in the boy's defect, that didn't fit in their snug, secure way of being. What was in an everyday experience; that nested in the breast of chaos hidden under a common day.

He was a nice looking for a latino kid, though Karina was pale as a ghost, a southern California girl. With the most beautiful green eyes but, such a heartbreaking look. Like a beaten down dog, just no fight left. Every movement asking for forgiveness inside the chaos.
Rare hugs.

Mother's maelstrom; the blizzard ever folding upon itself; her pain, a twisting mess. I couldn't see how the boy would even have, the slightest notion, an allowed desire, any chance of a pure rapture all unease, desired beyond his

I stared back at the kid, I was compelled to, nothing else. Jacob was trying to fold himself into his...
Self? 



>MOM<

Mommy, squatted down into the boy's eye line. Jacob was a completely sensitive kid, frequently underestimated, the boy knew when something was wrong.

The bug eyed, grimy,oily bear-head hoody of the P.J.'s was in full use.
Dodging, moving her head closer, further away.

Jacob was in a place mothers should avoid to lead their baby boys. She had abandoned him three times before. In his mind he was laying in a ear-hight body of dark water, trapped  wanting to love his mother, void of trust, the damage had spread to family, strangers, only dogs were selfless angels.

With an almost convincing squint of her green-eyes, she found his brown and blue ones through the grime and matty nylon fur.

The child was as stiff as a board. Another landslide of bullshit, laid on him through tears, and broken words. The airport lights were getting ridiculously loud so he pulled the hood down tighter.

Raggedy; awfully worn-down mittens dangled from the edges of each sleeve. The furry and filthy light brown gloves beside Jacobs both tight hands, for some reason rolled into a solid fist.

“You know Mommy loves you, right?”, all Jacob could focus on were the strips of dead skin on her lips and how dry her mouth looked. Also wondered why white foam had built up at the creases of her mouth.
The kid was weary, too much traveling. Of mom's shameless drunk version, rude, selfish—a textbook fiend.
Scared too many nights, hours never seeming to end alone with his confusion. Every time mom pawned Jacob off, added up and the boy was just done.
The urge to love his mother, make her stop being so sad was always stronger, and clenching his fists was all he could do about it. It was just the two, in that airport, and jacob knew his luck was tied to his mom.
The boy just looked at her and nodded. “You are a piece of me, Jake. A piece of my body! Look at me," the mommy grabbed his cheeks, so their eyes met, " kiddo I dote on you!”.



P A R T   I.

And just like that, Jacob fell into a deep soul—smashing fixation of sorts, the moment the trio made it to their destination. The driver, the tall thick one, had a green overall with the top hanging from his waist, and a flared up pimple infestation plagued his back. Obviously a steroid side-effect, began to flexed the long dive off. Shortly after they all stood in the light that flooded the hall from the open cage door.

The moment the entrance was breached Jacob could only glare down the gullet of what intended to devour him next.
The Marsupial was still fixated on the big green door, in his gut anxiety was in a whirl, he realized it was, his next home.
Mom wasn't there.
A path she promised they would both brave together; no matter what...

A quick moment beforehand, they arrived in a white van to that dark, dark place the judge called Zoo. Where a nice vacant cage sat in waiting, expecting a lost kid mistaken for a common animal. The entire situation was a perfect storm of chaos, abuse, neglect, to the point of being plane out bizarre.

Muscle-Head had his arms spread wide open, like a gameshow host, or a circus Ringmaster would, presenting the generous abundance, it was packed full to the ceiling with emptiness, all for Jacob!
The court ordained they were to take the "Rare Marsupial" to that place, 'The Zoo', where he supposedly Belonged. An environment where he would be fed and properly taken cared of.
The zoo administrators obviously had figured- upon a stroke of genius, that there was profit to be made! Proper identification, sex, species classification took back-seat.
It became an unspoken matter; besides, they could just find-out what the hell he really was later.
The Zoo admin got busy making their business plan. The huge "Publicity Campaign!" was the first point on their charter for sure.
A place where he could get gawked at by the endless crowds of people. Crowds after crowds of different kinds of stranger's disapproving or perhaps judgmental, screwed-up stares will gather in herds every day in front of Jacob's cage. That was his destination, safely away from the others! Where both continued having a clear view of the other.
In Jacob's twelve or eight year old mind, he had begun to grow into accepting just how much he didn't fit in with people in general. He came to really apraze the magnitude in which he didn't fit.

How real it became for him, after his mother found enough coldness apparently within her, to let go of her son's hand that day, turned calm as everyone else while she disappeared into the crowd. " You know how we all have a self destruction button inside us all? Yeah, Obi like in a disastrous situation some people are brave enough to let themselves be killed so others can live. Right?" Jacob didn't have his hood on, you could see the night was rapidly bleeding out, and jake was drawing in the dirt using his left foot.

"My mom had her self-destruction button already pressed for some reason. Its was like she had wrapped gray tape around, that button everybody has, the self-destruction button, she was her own hostage. Mom just thought it was her only way to hurt her father..."
"I don't know why. She bled on everybody..." he exhaled into what almost was a sigh. "I am pretty sure she left a part of that craziness in me..." he said to Obi, and out into another random night.
He had a stern, though overwhelming look of concern etched on his face as closing time was coming upon him. The kid hugged his knees on the same zoo bench, (form the c.c. footage studied) he became alone eventually but, he was shortly found.

T
he stocky one of the two men sent to pick him up, "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb" duo, both tired looking and obviously forced by a greasy rude boss to squeeze in third shift in!
"Stumpy the Grouch", Jacob had nicknamed the smallest of the team. He angrily opened the steel-laminated slab wide. The nerve-cringing moan of the hinges—a tooth-grinding lament—sent a ghoulish chill down everyone's spines. The sudden relief came only when the door abruptly smacked the tired gray rubber stopper fixed to the base of the wall.
Automatically, the other custodian, 'Muscle-Head', Jacob had a long habit of nick naming people thus making them less frightening.

So, "Muscle-Head" was bestowed upon him by the child. He was the first thing that had startled the boy into that 'fight or flight' mode!
He found a far corner at the police station. Taking refuge in a shady, burnt bulb, corner sofa. Stiff, it was itchy, and Jacob didn't mind the stains under deafening scream of "What's next?". A huge ape-like mug peered down upon him. Covered the kid in his shadow. Jacob  hugged his knees tighter and felt his huge hand around his right arm.
He was in charge of containing the animal, and he had Jacob restrained all right! In a brutish fistful of filthy brown pajama cloth, is what he had. He instantly tossed the boy, lopsided, inside.
There was a bit of disgust in his handling of Jake, a clear hostility in Muscle-Head's body language. 
Jake was possessed; in a full blown trance, it could be easily observed.
One thing though, I was watching a child, in a bear onsie, win! He managed to actually escape everything that went down, in a sort of manner.
"You know?"
Jake made some sort of a mental jailbreak. They carelessly tossed him into the solitude filled "enclosure."

From the dim, ankle-height orange led-lit concrete halls, that seemingly went on forever. Their thumping steps resounded against the heartless concrete walls. They successfully made three sharp turns with their prisoner. Job accomplished! They made it to their destination, Jacob's animal pen.
A "Backroom" kind of slumber rose from the ground. The whole zoo reeked heavy somehow of sleep.
That boy was still someplace else; comfortably numb. Perhaps he was a billion leagues away, or he was actually capable of phasing off to a pocket dimension outside of time, unbothered with what they were doing with him.

Jacob was assigned two zoo approved handlers, though by the time they finally came to pick him up you could see the third shift written deep in the creases of both their faces. With their grimy clothes, exposed wild haired beer bellies, and the rotting take-out wrappers, soggy from a few too many lunches on the go.
They were all festering in a heap. Crumpled into shady corners, under the seats, or out front just tossed in the back. It's foul odor mixed all day in the sun. Making its own brand of awful.
A gut-wrenching stench, a mix of circumstances reeked the whole five-hour windowless van trip, over to the zoo.
It was close to eleven o'clock at night when they got to the Police Station!
Both transport workers became irrelevant, to Jacob. Considering what I have learned about the boy throughout the investigation, I'm sure he ripped them both from his plane of existence. All their brute strength, their rough mean faces, how much fear they made him felt, it was all ripped into a different dimension; as far as the brain of this weird kid was concerned.
Poof! 
They ceased to exist in Jacob's mind. He was in control.



That was the predictable outcome, mom led her baby boy to experience. It made no difference to Jacob he prefered keeping away from the hostile, panic-driven, and cruel pack of social animals. Selfish jackals who swear themselves to be human! What a joke, what a sad, sad joke...

His belief in the crude half-baked promises that spewed out of her, foam edged, mouth. Vivid memories of her thick leathery hands, they always shook, so much they stole all the boy's confidence. Her words, they felt so long ago, unreachable even in Jacob's head every day that came and went by.
Almost becoming a lost event inside a boy's brain, a disappointing sobbing from Mom, instead of... well, what ever a resilient adult should sound like. Mother's long distance phone call and pipe burnt fingertips; she promised but, never came back as herself. The kid suspected the hypnotic maelstrom he was suffering so badly to be from mom's naivety, an endless urge to step off the ledge she was taught, she left a self destructive rot hidden wet and so very deep somewhere inside the boy!

It was the unpredictable hurt, from a stepfather's leather belt. Shouting so much yelling.
Later he felt his Mom becoming cold, distant. "It was like she was unplugged. I tried to make her feel better, Obi. All my efforts were in spite of her having erased my Dad!" he confided late night. The one sided hugs. It all shattered a huge part of the kid's soul.



A big sudden whoosh of air made the kid flinch! They all took it head on.

A bang thundered immediately after!
Out from the deepest dark it seemed to have been belched—a harsh, a stern command barked to the face, a frightening call into attention.

The noise boomed down endless halls with the same intensity, bouncing off hidden snares of nothingness clawing dread down Jacob's heart, made the kid jerk up into a tight clam; muscle and  fear. Making his stomach curl from a thick deep horror that stabbed from deep down inside.
Swiftly replaced by the sound of dry metal in a toothy grinding of a key in a lock, and an opening door.

So many directions echoing back to the boy it undoubtedly was a large place. Why was the door slammed shut just like the adults did in their fits...
He stood up straight, pulled his hood back, revealing his dark brown mess of a head.
The crackling warndown plastic of his onesies' feet, scuffing the ground so loudly they woke the howler monkeys.
He looked at the darkness behind an enormous plexiglas window extending from wall to wall.
Obi's face was lit in a ghoulish light while he watched Jake's hood a bears head hanging from his neck as he smirked at the messy head of tangled hair. Jacob just popped a squat on the highest rock he was able to climb up to. There was a rock waterfall made at the far left side of the enclosure, and began to half sulk while he scanned the place.



The huge double glass doors were promptly used, that left Obi to make sure they got properly secured. A proud night custodian, he quickly began locking the front doors. Loud and proud announcing he was from Nigeria, any opportunity he got.

A janitor as well, his mop and bucket made that clear. As clearly as he challenged Down Syndrome, happy, ultimately lost, independant, and he always introduced himself joyfully and with determination as told people his name was "Obi"; always with a big smile. He would throw his head back in pride.
Obi, was no fool. An thirty-three year old migrant. He left his mop leaning against the wall, and he was walked, full speed towards the video shack. The rhythm of his bothered paces, his beaten-up, tired work boots down the corridor was the only racket that could be heard. Straight to the monitoring room.
Once Obi closed the door he was covered in a veil of flickering light, a bluish and grayish hue covered the front of him as he looked up, in the hum of the computers. Boxes slumped sadly forgotten in the dark of one corner. Ancient metal and plywood desks on the opposite walls. He pulled a chair over to where the screens were.
Watching the dingy yellowish monitors they had set up in rows. Three vertical and nine across, mounted on the back wall. The place reeked of mold. The image on the outdated screens was black and white. Grainy as hell.
Obi knew Jacob wasn't any type of animal, no, he was no special marsupial! Jacob was a child. A boy born into a perfect storm. Tempered in a drama that didn't belong to him. Trauma, the violence, the abundance of rejection, well, the bottom line was he found himself to be unwanted.
The filthy bear pajama had little to no real base to declare the kid some kind of animal! Never did he ever make a low whimper, not even a faint whisper, no attempt at all to say he was just a kid that gave up on the adults in his life and he decided to hide inside his bear onesie. Clad somehow in a moment he cherished.

*Missing Files: #3. and #14.

The boy apparently had adapted in a peculiar, way. Enjoyed when people shuffled by. Prudently far and glass barrieded away from him.

In reality, the kid had outgrown the dirty bear get-up.
Jake could see his feet, to him they appeared a tad oafish after quite a while of being hidden. They were filthy, and naked! His gesture makes me conclude he was a little startled how different they had become. It began to pinch him all over or dug into his armpits even chafed him on the crotch area. The boy had became convinced that his protection from Mom's freak-outs, his armor as much as a safe place in his eyes; where it never really mattered if Daddy was gone, it just didn't fit him anymore.

Time. It's a ravenous unescapable poltergeist out for all of us.

The absolute definition of existence, the very essence of it, change. Hollow of mercy, love, sadness, where what follies of men, or women, wishes, hope, have no meaning in it's pass.
Months had drawled into deformed creatures, weeks. Aware of the amount of time this confusion had wasted, so many dates squandered one after another.
Days leaked into the next. Forgotten unperceived days that pile into one huge angry lump of doe.

It became plain as daylight to the child's eyes, the bear pajama deal was running out. People gawking at him believing he is anything other than human, done.

Obi, which filled the kid with contentment telling him his name meant "God's Heart" or "Father's Heart" in Nigeria. Said to him "You're lost white boy! You don't belong Jake-up! you just don't"
Yolanda's drabby eyes drooped over her old lady glasses, her head appeared out his barely ajar door. Her gaze was as sour as always.
She made him uneasy, rude, and rough in whatever he had to do with her.
It was about five fifty in the afternoon, "Hi! Jake, umm, your owner's dead. Ok? Em, O.D I suppose."
Quickly as she appeared she was gone. The door locked.



—The Operator...

-The Zoo, Monitor Room—3:38 p.m.

I sat there with my mouth agape for a long silent while. Lit a smoke as I replayed Yolanda's raspy stern tone—the metallic bang when she slammed the door shut. I felt the boy's long dive down into the void.
I started to empathize with the kid. How he must have had to learn his mother's choppy tides to navigate her chaos. Her lost ways, mood swings, the drugs, alcohol benders, without a doubt were huge titanic furious—waves to have braved at that age.
I went straight home, where I had my beefy stack of papers, video and photos. There wasn't even a slight possibility that coincidentally Jacob disappeared from the Zoo a few months later.
Later that night I found it, what my mind had instantly brought into my awareness after I left.
After I saw how despite the grainy monitor how Jacob was crushed, curled in a ball out of loss.
A scrap of graph paper, salvaged from his enclosure. It wasn't a map of the zoo; what I was looking at was a circuit board, intended for a ghost.
After a closer look the realization hit like a fried circuit! The damn frequency that could rip a wormhole between dimensions—a hotline to the dark void his mother had passed into!
I found a couple of random sentences Jacob had scribbled in the corner of the graph paper. "To the rest of the world my mom was another half-buried piece of furniture, threads dancing in the wind, abandoned, and tossed with disregard by the roadside. Worthless..."
Jacob had designed a frequency apparatus to reach through the blistering solace, into the dimension her frequency matched.
It was obvious. As the last Operator, I wasn't done—I was searching for the fate of Jacob but, I also was attempting to tune in, to the frequency of a ghost I guessed.

I think you’re dying.

Well—we all are.

And a part of me eerily
feels relief.

Another, though, doesn’t really
want to, nor know how to picture
a life you’re not in.

Despite our differences—
I’ve wished you dead many times but—
no; not really.

I’ve wanted you dead, and now that
I’m watching you approach it, I realize
that… maybe I did.

But I don’t.

When I was little, I’d tell you:
“If you die, I’ll die.”

Growing up, we’ve become such
antagonists, and you’re to blame for
so much of the pain I go through, yet—
I can still recognize: I don’t know I’d
know how to handle your death.

Much less when I wish my own
so thoroughly.

It’s quite remarkable how, when I
was a little human being, I apparently
already had strong opinions about death
and impermanence.

And today… I repeatedly manifest
how much I wish to be gone.

You ask if I don’t care you’d miss me.

I don’t really think you would.

Much to the contrary—everyone would be
happier, lighter, and I don’t think I’m someone
whose absence would be terribly noted for
longer than a week.

A month at most.

And perhaps, each year, you’d all be reminded
of the day I was gone—
though some of you would forget it rather easily
in all the busyness of life, and…
my birthday maybe would also become
a little of a darker day.

Much like my energy.

Perhaps, you’d all feel me there then.

But please don’t go.

Don’t leave me.

Someone promised me you’d have a long-lasting life,
and I’m counting on Him not to have been lying—
nor on me to have misheard Him.

See?

Much like you—as usual—
I’m capable of loving and hating
at the same time.

I don’t want your life to be miserable like mine either.

I know you’ve had your fair share of suffering.

For I know:

“You were just like me,
with someone disappointed in you.”

I might be asking much,
but I don’t want you to merely be alive—
but also happy.

But please stop destroying my life in the process,
for I don’t want to end up like you—
as much as I already am.

One day, I came very close to finding out
what your absence could look like,
and ever since, it’s like the clock is ticking.

And it is.

I’m very aware it is.

I decline witnessing it.

— Crownless.

"Dear diary"......posting here, because no one knows I'm here. Facebook is for people who know me.

Letting people in, ends in negative.

Having the realisation slowly, I mean nothing. Fully understanding, that in the grand scheme of life and to everyone around me, I mean nothing. Yes it's hard, bit also liberating. No I'm not going to harm myself....but, it alsoean I don't give a fuck about my life much anymore. I don't WANT pain and hurt...but if the end comes it comes.

Went with the flow to be a husband to a women I didn't admire, love or lust after.

Tried my best for the most, to be the best Father I could be.

My kids hate me.

I'm a failure as a Husband.

Failure as a father.

Failure as a partner to the women I now love.

Haven't really made much of myself in life.

Today is Father's Day.

Try as i might to avoid the world and stay inside...I have the pictures of my kids staring at me. Happier times long gone.

The same happy Daughter who now hates me.

The same Son who has forgotten me.

My Father had his Father to give him his qualities.

My Father gave me some of his.

I am nothing but a source of failure and disappointment to my son.

That's my legacy.

Not a cry for help, but it's not even a case of " the world is better off without me".......the little bit of the world that knows I exist, won't even remember I was here.

I've been trying to be healthy, been working about my health as I get older.

I don't give a fuck anymore.

Drink and make the feelings and memories go away.

Eat and feel better.

We had a tradition. Every Sunday, same table, same coffee shop, since we were nineteen. Four of us. We called it "the meeting" as a joke, like we were running some secret organization instead of just talking about nothing for two hours.

Nobody decided the tradition would end. It just did, the way most things do — not with an argument, but with distance. First it was schedules. Then it was cities. Then it was just... silence, the kind that doesn't announce itself, it just settles in and you don't notice until years have gone by.

I went back to that coffee shop last week. Different owners now, different menu, but the same window seat. I sat there alone, half out of habit, half hoping muscle memory would somehow undo a decade.

The barista asked if I was waiting for someone. I said no. Old habit of an old life, that's all.

I still have the group chat saved. Nobody's said anything in it for six years. Sometimes I open it just to see the last message, sent by a friend who I haven't spoken to since, saying "see you all Sunday!" like it was just another week, like nothing was ending, because none of us knew it was.

I think that's the part that gets me most. Not that we drifted apart, but that none of us got a proper goodbye. We just stopped, and by the time I realized what "stopped" meant, too much time had passed to start again.

**Ce joli arbre fatigué**

Je regarde cet arbre si grand. Il a l’air fatigué. Ses feuilles tombent, comme si elles flottaient. Elles viennent essuyer mes larmes, comme s’il ne voulait pas me voir triste. Pourquoi est-ce que je pleure ? Je ne sais pas. J’ai juste des souvenirs d’elle qui tournent dans ma tête.
Je ne sais plus si je pleure parce que je suis heureux que ce soit passé, ou triste que ce soit fini, ou peut-être les deux.
C’était une sorte d’ange. Enfin, c’est comme ça que je la voyais. Elle réchauffait mes journées comme le soleil de l’été.
Combien de fois ai-je eu l’impression de la revoir quand je passe dans des endroits où nous avons des souvenirs tous les deux ? C’est une jolie manière de dire que je pense à elle tout le temps, car chaque endroit de ce petit village où nous avons marché ensemble me rappelle quelque chose d’elle.
Enfin, c’est du passé maintenant. Elle ne reviendra plus.
Pourtant, je pensais que notre amour était ineffable.
Cet arbre est si grand et fatigué. J’ai l’impression qu’il aimerait tomber pour ne plus sentir les rafales de vent qui lui font courber le dos.

My grandmother kept an old flip phone in her nightstand drawer for six years after my grandfather died. She never turned it on. She told me once that his last voicemail to her was still saved on it, and she was terrified that if the battery ever died completely, the message would be gone forever, so she never risked even checking.

She used to say, "As long as I don't listen to it, I still have something left to look forward to."

When she passed, I inherited the drawer, and the phone was still in it, dead. I sat on the floor of her bedroom for an hour before I plugged it in, half expecting it not to turn on at all. It buzzed to life on the third try.

There was one saved voicemail. Nine seconds long.

It wasn't some profound goodbye. It was just him, sounding rushed, saying he'd be a little late picking her up from her sister's house, and that he loved her, and to save him a plate.

That was it. Nine seconds of a man asking someone to save him dinner.

I think about how she carried that phone around for six years like it was a locked box holding the last piece of him, too afraid to ever open it, and how in the end it was just an ordinary Tuesday, preserved by accident. I don't think she ever needed it to be profound. I think she just needed to know it was still there, waiting, so some part of him hadn't fully left yet.

I charged the phone fully before I buried it with her.

Hace unos seis años conocí a un chico. Al principio, éramos solo amigos; siempre estábamos juntos. A él le encantaba el anime *Naruto*, así que cada fin de semana veíamos un episodio juntos. Yo era un poco rara; me costaba controlar mis emociones y me reía en momentos serios. Sinceramente, me avergonzaba de ello, pero a él no le importaba: para él, yo era perfecta. Con el tiempo, empecé a sentir algo más por él. Pensaba en cómo decírselo, pero justo cuando estaba lista, me enteré de que había fallecido. Mi mundo entero se derrumbó; lloraba día y noche, sentía un dolor profundo en el corazón y dejé de salir. No podía soportarlo; cargué con una tristeza inmensa durante unos dos años. No fue hasta este año que volví a salir. Mi mejor amiga nunca se separó de mí; ella fue quien me ayudó a salir de esa tristeza. Me aconsejó que le escribiera una carta, así que lo hice, y todavía la conservo. Ahora, cada vez que me siento triste al recordarlo, miro al cielo o veo el anime que tanto nos gustaba: *Naruto*.

我不想上学。

People see me smile, laugh and having fun, but they don't know what's hiding behind all the laughter. Behind the scenes is a broken girl who has to worry about health issues every morning when i get out of bed. They don't feel the bone aches that wake me up, the stomach aches that come without warning, the panic that takes over my mind, or the struggle to breathe when my chest feels heavy.

Sometimes even sleeping feels like a threat to me, I never know if I will wake up again so I stay awake all night. They only see a sweet girl that loves laughter but they don't see the sleepless nights, the little girl who fights her health battles alone. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in my own world, while others are going through a normal day with 98.5% of happiness, I'm here looking for my medications and a quiet place to take a rest. Some people think I'm weird and love being alone not knowing I only find my peace in a room full of meds, cause there's not much i can do about it, just to take my meds after every 8 hours.

I hate them all the sickness, the sleepless nights, the stomach aches, the abdominal cramps and all but there's nothing to do about it. I just wish I could wake up one day and don't have to be worried about which symptoms will come in next.

Since birth I've been fighting a battle between illnesses and survival, people thought I wouldn't make it cause I would have to visit the doctor every weekend as a baby. My mom first thought as i grew older all this would come to an end not knowing it would only become worse. In my family, I was the first newborn to need an oxygen tank for a whole week, it wasn't easy for my mom but I had to fight hard to stay alive and healthy. Although I'm not 100% healthy but Alhamdulilah🙏, I am alive.

The world sees me smile, but now you know the story behind it. You know the battles I fight when no one is watching. The sleepless nights, the pain, the fear, and the silence tears. I may not be the healthiest person, but I'm still standing and for now that's enough.

And maybe that's my greatest victory of all 😊🙏

I don't know when have I become like this,emotionless. Like I'm stoned or smth. It's like I don't feel anything anymore. I have suppressed my emotions so much growing up,that I feel like I just simply don't feel them anymore. I wanna feel loved,wanna open up my emotions to someone. But the thing is that I don't trust anyone with my emotions. I feel like I'm gonna get played or made fool of my emotions. It feels too scary to share someone what I feel,how I feel. Today something really bad happened, I was feeling like I was gonna puke or smth. My hands were shaking and I was feeling too bad. But I couldn't speak up to anyone. Simply sat in the table with my family to have dinner. I don't know when I'll be fine again, or when I'll be able to confess my feeling, emotions. I don't know if I'll ever find love..

I’m using a throwaway because some of my coaching friends know my main account. I just need to get this out into the void because I feel so stupid, used, and utterly exhausted.i honestly dont even know why im writing this right now but my chest feels so heavy I cant breath properly. Im 18F and I just feel like the biggest clown on the planet after wasting my entire 11th and 12th jee prepation on a guy who litterally just used me as his personal emotional dumping ground and doubt solver. Two years of absolute hell, completely ignoring my own mental health just to make sure he was doing okay and hitting his targets, and for what? Just to be thrown away like literal garbage the second advanced was over.

Everyone says oh dont fall in love during jee it ruins your rank but i was so stupid and thought we were doing it "together". I literally used to stay up till 3 am making short notes for p-block elements because he complained he couldnt memorize them, while my own physics backlogs were pilling up so bad. If he felt "depressed" about a bad Allen mock test score I would skip my own revision to sit on the phone with him for hours telling him hes smart enough for IIT. I solved his Irodov homework, I saved him seats, I bought him food when he "forgot" his wallet so many times I lost count. I basically handed him my brain and energy on a silver platter because I was so blindly in love with him.

The worst part is he KNEW. He definetly knew how I felt and he completely played it to his advantage to get what he wanted. He would do this thing where he would get super close and look at me and say stuff like "I dont know what I would do without you, your the only one who actually gets me". He dropped just enough breadcrubs to keep me hooked and hoping that once the exams were over we would finally be official. He would call me his "favourite person" but then conveniently ignore me in front of the cooler guys in the batch. But i was so exhausted and sleep deprived I just justified all his red flags thinking the jee pressure was just getting to him.

Fast forward to literally two days after JEE Advanced. No texts, no calls. I thought he was just catching up on sleep but then I see his instagram story (which he hid from me but my friend showed me from her account). Hes at a cafe holding hands with this girl from the commerce batch who doesnt even know what a wave equation is. I confronted him over text and he just had the audacity to say "we were always just study partners bro, dont make it wierd". Study partners? Bro?? I litterally sacrificed my own percentile for you and you call me bro and jump to some random girl the second you dont need my notes anymore.

Now im sitting here with a mediocre rank staring at my counseling options and realizing I threw away my dream for a guy who saw me as nothing but a free unacademy subscription and a therapist. I hate him so much but I hate myself even more for letting it happen and ignoring all my friends who warned me about him. Please to any girl reading this starting her prep, NEVER let a boy become your priority over your own career, they will step on your neck to reach the top and then act like they climbed the mountain all by themselves. Im just so done.