A time to try again, perhaps

On Tuesday I will sit my final exam and then I will be free. To me, this is one exam too many and the thought of cramming in a year's worth of knowledge that I know will still not be enough is still too daunting a task to begin. So, almost paralysed, I practice my well worn technique of avoidance. Because, after all, I have learnt to expect results from a minimum effort. Though deep down I acknowledge that I cannot possibly achieve this time.

I am not sad. Leaving school, has been a long time coming. I have withered, and struggled, and fought in that hostile environment for too many years to feel any sadness or sentimentality. I have lost too much to ever want it. And in return I have learnt very little in terms of things that are useful for trying to survive outside of the bubble that will shortly be burst.

All I really have is the knowledge that it is unwise to hope. It is unwise to hope for better things to come because they simply will not. Time and time again I hoped and was cut down by a different catastrophic disaster that dashed them even more callously than the time before. This year alone I was forced to quit my job because my body - brain and joints - began to fall apart. I have staggered down this never ending tunnel chasing a light that is simply an illusion. I have contemplated suicide (it's time I manned up and used the word) and every time I cycle back there, the compulsion to follow through is that much stronger; the look over the edge that much longer. I have contemplated hacking off my own limbs as they kept me awake night after night; collapsing beneath me and damaging me beyond repair with every single step. I have suffered insufferable doctors who in their own shortcomings and failing of knowledge refuse to acknowledge simple facts; blaming what is not at fault, seeking the easy way out.

So it seems wrong to hope now. The word feels wrong on my tongue. I don't seek a better tomorrow, I seek to save myself from further disappointment. And it's exhausting, living this way. Someone who doesn't share my head space cannot understand the mammoth undertaking that is each day. How meaningless each pat on the back for 'turning up to school today' was. It's unimaginable what I have survived. Continue to survive. Won't survive forever.

School will end, and not a moment too soon, and I will not look back. Nor will I look too far forward. Or be content with the now. I decided to live for a bit, vaguely and poorly convinced that things cannot possibly stay this way, but I cannot live forever this way.

This black despair is after all, incorrigible.

- Sky