switches

The three of us held onto each other like rope holds a makeshift raft. As if we would fall apart easily if the other wasn’t there. All a little crazy, most a little scared, but combined we would survive, because living in groups is safer. Each one of us a switch, with a different setting that would make us function a little better collectively.

I was the one who was completely turned on, a yes, a bright light for everything. I want everything. She explained it like a person who had two completely clashing traits, but operating both of them at the same time. It wasn’t that I was crossed wires or a messy mind; it was that the wires were all going in the same direction, and all of them contradicted the other. I crave comfort like a starving man craves even the smallest lump of bread, but cannot stomach it when it is finally received. I want to hang onto every person in my life, but I completely despise them. I want to go out and party and be reckless, but I want to sleep and remain quiet. I want to live a fulfilling life, but I want to stay motionless forever. I cried every time I was asked to go out because I did but I didn’t want to and no one ever understood and it is the very fact that I am an on switch, I want everything all at the same time.

He was the one who was completely turned off, a no; he had passions but no emotions. He secluded himself from everyone, even hid himself from the light. He was a quiet baby, he was quiet now. Never making true human contact, just going about life holding onto a few things he loved. He looked at us, compared himself a lot and chose things to be good at that we couldn’t do, and then decided he didn’t want to be us. He didn’t want to be crazy. So he turned it all off. He’s a master planner, could plan a death like a spy and could pass behind you like a shadow. Silent, visible, but unnoticed. He always listened and tried to give advice, but his emotions had been turned off years ago. Sometimes it frustrated him that he wasn’t like us. If something went wrong or didn’t go his way he would cry. But only because the circuit wouldn’t connect, he would malfunction, because he knew he should care. He just didn’t.

She was the one who was off or on, indecisive, one day she could do everything and anything and the next she was panicked, unprepared. When she fought, she was ready, switched on and ready to fight, but then she could turn it off. Sometimes the wires passed over each other and she would start but couldn’t finish if she tried. She said she was the unfixable one, the ‘fucked up’ one, the one that ruined everyone’s lives. She said she kept living for our mother. Our mother who told her she wished she hadn’t lived, that she had let her die when she should’ve because she shouldn’t have to live such a horrible life.  She told me that when she died, it’d be the happiest day of her life because her life is about survival, having goals is how she survives, having lovers makes it a little easier and the idea of death keeps her going. I wanted to cry for her, but she wasn’t crying. She was so happy to say she was going to die someday.