Run for a Fall

People say you can’t run from your problems. You have to have the balls to step up and solve the problem yourself. But sometimes, things aren’t that easy. Sometimes, you can’t fight. You can’t win. You’re forced to either run or suffer.

Fear isn’t just the chill in your veins, the flashes of grotesque images and that sudden, faster beating of your heart. Fear is ice, your heart, blood, and brain become big chunks of ice, so your body pumps what’s left of warmth to drive you to do crazy things or make wrong decisions. Fear is sacrificing comfort, sleeping in a twin bed with two of your sisters to avoid the enemy one stairwell down. Fear is peeing in your trashcan and eating paper from loose leaf notebooks, being too afraid to come out of your own room. Sometimes, that terror you feel is too fucked to put down into beautiful, flowery poetry, depicting frozen faces and screams of young girls. Real horror is a lot more and deeper than that.

I have never suffered in my lifetime. I have been too spoiled and too confident. Real suffering isn’t being pushed around on the playground or enduring taunts from bullies. Suffering not having big kids from the back of the bus chuck all your schoolbooks out the window into a roaring street, or being pushed down onto the living room carpet, having your body touched by your best friend’s older brother. People experience pleasure and pain, and sometimes I wonder if there is a limit to how much someone can suffer. I have learned a long time ago, that no matter how wrong your situation is, how fucked your life is at that moment, or how much you whine and cry, no one feels sorry for you. People may pretend to care, but in honestly, no one cares about anyone but themselves. Suffering is when it’s too painful to cry. I have never suffered in my lifetime.

When someone is hurt and afraid, alone or scared, they are told to stand up and fix the problem themselves, to fight, or find help. Though sometimes, you never have that voice to tell you stand up and fight. Don’t run. Stand. Your. Ground. When it comes to that, you do what feels best to you. And your body makes two decisions- one with your head, and one with your heart. One is much more logical, makes more sense, and is probably the smarter, better choice. But the other choice you make is the one that feels right, the choice you know you should make, and most often, you are blinded down this one road.

I had two choices. They have stayed attached in my head like a sticky note, as I pondered over them, night and day. Time was running out. I lay in bed that night, sweating, enduring the few kicks and snores from my sister beside me. The air conditioner was half broken, coughing out the last of our cold air, but I hadn’t had it turned on just for our comfort, but to block out the noise from downstairs. The fact that I was still under one roof with them made me want to vomit.

It’s hard to hate your blood, but sometimes it’s so right. Blood may be thicker than water, but water quenches you just as blood sustains you. Now I looked at them as the bitch who birthed me and the individual that stuck himself into her in order to conceive me. I was fed and raised by them. But now, it was my turn to live.

Fear hammered into me like steel. It made me weak and nauseous as my head spun in uncomfortable circles, unable to make a (right) decision. When you’re afraid, you automatically assume the worst, but for the most part, the worst will never happen to you. Unless you’re me. The worst has already happened.

I lay in bed awake. 12:39. Time seemed to drag on so slowly, and I so dreaded for tomorrow to come. It’s been a long day, and normally I would be considerably tired at this hour, but I wasn’t. I still breathed hard and fast, with my heart pounding like a warm drum in my breast. I’ve been lying in bed since ten o’clock; I knew I couldn’t leave the safety of my bedroom. Even though there was no lock protecting us from their rage, I wouldn’t dare leave the last bit of comfort and solace I had here.

They hated her. They hated me for loving her. My only comfort in this world, so far from my arms. I felt as though everything good, everything beautiful and pure, has left me in the dust. I guess it was nature’s way of screwing me over. But what did I do wrong?

I shut my eyes, trying again for the hundredth time to fall asleep. I knew I couldn’t, but there was nothing wrong with trying. As I closed my eyes, I thought of her. Laying in the dark with her, seeing the faintest trace of her face in the pale moonlight reflecting from her windows. Our naked bodies touching, warm and idyllic, molding against each other in our perfect embrace. When you are in love, your bodies speak for themselves as your tongues are silenced by the heaviness of lust. There is little or no awkwardness. You fit together like puzzle pieces.

Deep down in my heart, I knew it wasn’t wrong. To them, and to most of the world, it was. I breathed more harshly, and realized there were tears in my eyes. I haven’t cried in weeks. I felt too strong to cry. I didn’t want to start now.

I tried to slow my breathing, bite my lip, but it came. My chest heaved as tears spilled from my eyes, and I hoped to God that my sister was asleep. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I wanted to be strong for her. She has endured far worse then me under our parents’ hand. I pulled one sheet around my body, and kept the blanket at my feet; it was far too hot to be cuddled under a blanket, even though I longed to wrap it around my body and shield me from the world. I fought the urge to keep the blanket where it was, and finally, I forced myself to stop the tears. I opened my eyes bravely, and decided to stop the crying. I needed to make a choice.

I had two choices carefully imprinted in my head. Two choices that I have rehearsed to myself, thought over, slept over. One was made with my head, the other with my heart. I knew that whatever choice I made, both options had a chance of my life being ruined forever.

Now, I knew I had to choose. Should I stay or should I go?

Things have already came down to the worst. I had about one hundred dollars saved up in my lock box from babysitting. I already knew where I would go if I ran, and it’s not where you think I’d go. I knew exactly where and how I would get to where I would need to be getting, but once I arrived somewhere, I would only stay for so long before being on the move again. They wouldn’t be able to catch me.

Fear and excitement pulsed in me so much I laughed out loud. The plan was so perfect. I had the route planned out completely in my head. This would be so easy and painless, but it sure was risky. But in a way, that was the fun part!

I knew exactly where I would be going and who I would be going with. No cell phones, because I still wasn’t sure if police could trace your whereabouts even if the phone was turned off. Pay phones would work. It would cost seventy dollars for transportation, and I could thrive off of twenty bucks for food and water, if it takes longer to get there then I expected. In a way, this plan scared me and excited me at the same time. I was sure my parents would eventually figure out the first leg of escape, when they come back home after eight hours of work and I‘m not home by dinnertime. But, by the time they figure that out, I would be long, long gone, even after they call the police. I would have a day to escape with them thinking I’m home, safe and sound.

I knew exactly where I would be going. I memorized the phone numbers, times, dates and schedules in my head. But, I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going, the places I would be staying at, and who I would be going with. I can't tell my sisters. I can't tell any friends. I can’t even tell you.

The thought itself was dangerous as it was, and planning it out was even worse. Sometimes, you aren't able to fight. You aren't able to hide. So you'd better run, even though you'd most probably fall flat on your face anyway. Would it be ironic to say that only some teens had the balls to even think about running away? Only a few have the guts enough to carry out their plans. And a small percentage had the willpower to never come back home.

If you wanted to run, you have to tell yourself to never come back home. If you really wanted to leave home, you couldn’t go back, or else, there was no point in leaving. If I ran, I couldn’t return. That frightened me. I told myself to wait for things to get better, wait for a better chance for me to begin living my life, to try and fight while sticking around a few more years until I reach eighteen with enough money to sustain me on my own, when I can finally, legally, leave home. But, why wait? At that moment, I realized I’ve already been waiting for things to get better for years. I’ve been here long enough, and at this moment, I realized I was more than ready to finally leave home.

If you stick around in a nasty situation and just hope for things to get better, they never will. And, in some cases, such as this, fighting or hiding isn't the answer either. You’ll be waiting around all your life in a cage, with no chance to get the courage to break the shackles binding you to escape. And then I realized, that is what I feared most, and right now, it was what I was consenting to. A cage. A cage to break you, keep you locked up, bars to hold back your fiery strength and youth until weakness and old age come to accept it. By then, you’ll already be free, but for you, it will be far too late. I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock. 12:43.

I’ve heard many older folks say that teenagers act on instinct alone, and don’t stop to think. I realized I didn’t stop to make the logical choice. I knew I was a stupid, hardheaded, teenage brat. And after a while, I realized they have been right all along. We are young, we are stupid, and for the most part, we go with our own gut and end up making the wrong choice in the end.

But then, in that moment, I unmasked something else, another discovery. Though adults may act on logic, their fire has burned out the moment they accepted a new prison, be it a career, marriage, or children. Their fire has gone out the moment they accepted that, because it was their choice. Adults may think with logic, and may choose with their own hindsight, but they have no more heart to follow. I have no choice to be under my parents’ tight reign in the first place, and I had no power here as far as I was concerned, but I could be able to leave it. Risk all and take the hard path in life.

I knew it was my moment to choose. Everything has come down to this.

If I stay, I could possibly work things out with my parents, and endure another two years of this miserable hell. I could possibly find some sort of consolation outside of home and school, where I could finally being to live, but not the way I would like to. I could stay to get a job, work hard and raise enough money until I turned eighteen, when I could finally leave.

I could stay in high school and graduate. Then, I could possibly move on to college and make a better life for myself. I’d have a steady career to fall back on. Then, I’d ensure myself for survival. After that, I’d have enough money to raise a family, and follow dreams of my own. I’d live comfortably and happily. Who wouldn’t give that up?

But, I knew, that was not where my heart lay. If I stay, my parents will never know me. If I stay, I’ll be a stranger.

If I stay, I’ll continue to have a good, ornate life. Nice clothes, jewelry and makeup will still be mine. The few friends I find in high school could still be mine. I’d still have hot meals served to me on our table every night, my two sisters to come to for consolation, a phone, computer, television, all my books and writings, will still be mine. I will still have my life. I knew this. I knew that even if I ran, I would fall sooner or later. I couldn't continue on that way.

If I stay, I can spend two years waiting to be in her arms again. But I can die. She can die. I can move on, she can move on.

If I stay, I’ll continue crying myself to sleep every night, counting the days and months, waiting to intertwine my body into hers, kissing those soft lips, and being whole again. I could spend almost a decade before coming up with enough cash to live with her. Whether I like it or not, she is my other half. And sometimes, I’d have it no other way. My love would be only for her, my fall, for her.

I knew that if I stayed, I would not be true to my heart. I tell myself to forget it, forget what I think, forget what I want, but am I really being true to myself?

If I stay, I can continue to follow the American dream. If I stay, I give up my dream.

Things can’t continue to work out this way any more. I had to choose. I felt rage and anger in me, like a roaring wildfire, to leave, to scream and get out as fast as I can before I prison myself, and yet, I also feel the small, tender girl, who only called one place her home, and one people her family. Right now, there is no way I miss that fragile, sensitive girl in me. I have grown stronger over the years. Not by enduring the wounds of imprisonment, but by telling myself, I deserve better than this. And I had every right to fight for the way I want to live.

Sometimes, you can't fight. You've already struggled long enough with enough hope to keep you thriving, but you can't fight forever. Sometimes, you can't hide, because, they can always know where to find you.

You can't stay. You can't fight. You can't hide. You can't always be the hero.

You'd probably be better off running anyway.