Sweet Lies

Lying there, shrouded in warmth, surrounded by comfort.  Motionless.  Eyes open, you stare at the ceiling.  Not at the light streaming through curtains the color of night, nor at the hands of the clock, ticking away, conducting the disappearance of the day.  Only the ceiling, the paint a shade of white, artistically named and slapped its own original number for the purpose of seeming sophisticated.  And as you lie there under it, all you can think is, that's a hideous shade of white.

All the voices slowly whisper in your ear, don't get up, don't get up and you can't help but ask them what would happen if you did.  So they tell you, they whisper frantically, they tell you, you will die.  You wonder then, you wonder if you wouldn't still die if lay there for all of eternity, staring at the blank canvas of a ceiling, waiting to be painted with fresh blood.  No, they tell you, if you stay, you will fade, but you will not die, you will not meet a bitter ending and you know it isn't true.

But oh the sweet, sweet lies they feed you.  As you lie there and watch the ceiling, unchanging despite the neverending passage of time, you wonder if maybe you could make it true.  If maybe, just maybe if you stayed there, the lies would turn into truths, and you lie there, missing the smell of steel tinged with blood.  You turn your head slightly and trace over the scars with your eyes, wondering why they're still there, why you're still there, why you haven't faded away yet.

The phone rings dully in the background.  One ring, then two.  You know you should pick it up, but what does it matter if you don't?  You're on your way to fading already, and fading quickly at that.  Three rings.  You resume contemplating the scars.  Four rings.  Blissful silence.  Even the voices have stopped and you beg them, please don't stop, please come back, don't leave me here.  But they don't return, so you surrender once more to the silent screams and the pretty lies that sharp edges have told to you before.

You lie there, wondering if maybe something is going to change, maybe something is going to move, something is going to get better.  And you don't fall asleep because you are afraid of what might find you if you do.  So you let go, and you collapse across the sheets, the cloth so pristine, wanting to soak up the stains of life and loss.  You don't fade.  But you don't die either.  Not immediately anyway.  You listen for those sweet, sweet lies for a minute longer until you finally understand that they're not going to come.

They won't save you.