It is dark and only the slightest hint of light shines through the blinds.  You don’t have the energy to get up, so you allow yourself to reach over and grab the beer sitting on the bedside table. Habit calls to you and you can’t ignore it. Often you are alone and your thoughts are free to destroy, to hinder, to keep you from doing anything. You have to block them out, to mute the thoughts inside your head. You drink.  You should be doing something: College apps, homework, anything besides what you’re currently doing–which is absolutely nothing. Why aren’t you doing anything? You can do it.

 

You’re just so tired.

 

You don’t want to get out of bed. Your parents yell at you. They don’t realize you’re already yelling at yourself. That your anxiety levels are rising with every passing minute that you put off your work, slowly building, slowly crushing you. The weight is like a boulder whose sole purpose is to burden you. Day by day, you push that boulder up the hill, only to have it roll right back down on you. Your parents expect the most from you, so does everyone else. Why does everyone expect so much from you? Be successful. Make a name for yourself. Get out of bed already.

 

But you’re just so tired.

 

You got pulled over yesterday. You weren’t actually doing anything wrong, but for some reason, people just don’t like the idea of such a young person in such a loud car. Who cares? It’s none of their business anyway. You told your parents, they yelled at you. Off to bed, you guess.

 

You haven’t gotten up since.

 

The thoughts in your head have gotten louder, angrier. You reach over, take another sip of beer.  The thoughts grow quieter.  You must keep drinking; you aren’t planning on doing anything else anyway. You sink into your pillows, creating a cocoon of cotton and down. Maybe if you sink deep enough, you’ll never stop sinking and wouldn’t that just be nice. Keep sinking and you might drown in a sea of nothing. No parents, no anxiety, no expectations. Nothing. Just nothing.

 

Is that what you want?

Isn’t that what you want?

 

Maybe the cocoon will protect you and the world will leave you alone for a while because you wish, you really wish it would.

 

And you’re tired.

On your own.

 

Maybe if you drink enough, and sink enough, you won’t feel so alone.