How could they know. How could they even dare to understand.

Her eyelids fluttered but stayed closed. They seemed to be closed more often recently. Artificially pale and bereft of life, a hand lay in mine. There was a devastating innocence about her, an immaculate perspective. On cue, almost mockingly, the EKG perforated my thoughts. Though, I wished its pulse was louder. I wished that someone would just scream so that she couldn't hear my thoughts. So that I couldn't hear my thoughts. As ashamed as I was of it, beneath the surface I was envious of her. Beneath my consoling, sympathetic, revoltingly misleading facade lay a hidden, poisonous jealousy. And I hated myself for it. And I hated her for it.

She had something I could never experience. An outlook, an overview, so much more profound than that of any average lifeless individual roaming busy streets. I tried to imagine the vista of her thoughts. Attempted to comprehend her absolute clarity on the brink, overlooking the edge. No longer is she influenced by the puppet hands of materialism, cynicism, egoism, jealousy, or hatred. All she sees is beauty. All she knows, appreciation. And ironically, I sat by, thoughts screaming, discontent, and envious, and bitter that my thoughts were so bitter.

No one talks to me much anymore, I guess I would be what they call an outcast. They. Who are they anyway? They all hold themselves in such high regard I'm sure. But they're no better off than I am. They have no more understanding or clarity than I do. I have a feeling that they're just as scared and lonely as I am. Just as fearful of their thoughts and perspectives as me. Just as helpless. So, in a way, I try to sympathize with them. I look at them as if looking into a mirror. If only it were that easy for me; my mirror is so tarnished that I can only see my imperfections. Only view myself in the light of others, or rather, in their shadows. I look and realize my insignificance, my mediocrity, my abnormality. And my thoughts scream. So I stay quiet and I write in my journal. And I look at her, chained but free, and I see the eyes that she looks at the world with, and I see her condition, and I hate myself even more.

Loneliness scares me. I hate being alone with them. They spit into my ears from the inside, blocking out memories and happiness without my control. The thoughts take hold of my feeble brain and whisper the worst things to whisper. They are often an entity of their own, me being their only victim, me being the only target of their vehemence. I don't often try to explain it, even to myself. The doctors do though. They use this word, I hate it but they just keep using it and using it and assuming I'm alright with it. Schizophrenic. Like I'm not the same creature as they are, like I'm something else entirely. There is a condescending tone behind their every action, especially when they try to be nice. They try to hide it but I see what they really are. Evil. They tell my parents that I need to be "helped", making them doubt and pity their only son. Fill little orange bottles with chemicals that make my head hurt. Make me talk to people who act like they understand, trying to change what I am, how I see. But I know of their ignorance. The lenses of their perception are just as fogged as mine. They see more monsters, hide more secrets. While my thoughts may sometimes scare me, they're still mine, and mine to be deciphered. What I've ultimately realized is that nobody, nobody can see like she can.

My story has been a dark one so far. It's difficult to withhold the bitterness of my thoughts and the bitterness in my world. But that’s not to say I see no beauty. There is an advantage to an isolated perspective. Just like the heightened alternative senses of a blind man, my lack of social interaction bestows me with a keener mindset. I find that pure observation quiets the tumultuous altercation raging in my head. Grants me, if for just a moment, with a freedom from the shackles of my scrawny body and crippled thoughts. I see the world in a way I know few do. I experience a moment of absolute purity with absolute clarity. They are fleeting moments though, for they are always immediately crushed by the cruelty and hatred that lives within me, that lives within the world. You see, while the doctors may choose to label and dissect me like valiant arbiters of sanity, the undeniable truth remains. We are all fundamentally insane. We are all in constant battle with our inherent rectitude and our eagerness to destroy it. This tearing perspective is what will inevitably drive me to oblivion, but there is homage in my understanding of my insanity. The true evil lies in their ignorance. Their belief that they could possibly escape the fate of the human condition. Their insanity is not that of voices, of screaming thoughts, but of their perspective. They go through their lives thinking they can really see. Believing that the hue of their outlook is clear and pure, when in reality they wear steel goggles. In reality they are the blind man, but unaware of their condition. Unaware of her. Of true clarity in a world of chaos.

She was my savior. I was lost in my screaming thoughts and this burning world until I found her. It was as if she had more strength of goodness than the entire human race while bearing the weight of the universe on her shoulders. When I first saw her in her dying state, battling a monster unlike any I had ever seen, I witnessed her view of the world. With death, regret, burden, grief, misery, and anger pressing down on her existence with an infinite force, she was able to look up and see indefinitely, absolute beauty. She was able to look up at me, hateful, undeserving, flawed, and tell me how much she loved everything about me. I couldn't understand it. Her. I couldn't understand how the universe could be so sardonic and mocking either. The world was burning and its fuel was hatred and jealousy and insanity and evil business people and politicians we’re ruling it, tending to the flames. And she lay there riddled with disease, and all she saw was beauty. My thoughts screamed, but this time it was me. They. They thought they understood the world and beauty and truth and me while living their insane lives of hypocrisy. When the only person who really saw anything was her. But they didn't know of her, or her vision. How could they know? How could they ever even dare to understand.