[ WP ] Loneliness

I was seventeen. 
 
 I did n't shower. 
 
 I did n't sleep. 
 
 I barely moved. 
 
 My room was a wreck. If I moved the bowls on the shelf above my desk, thousands upon thousands of fruit flies would rise from their resting place in the moldy fruit or rice or cereal that happened to be up there. 
 
 I went days without seeing anyone. 
 
 Weeks without speaking. 
 
 My life was in the humming metal box underneath my desk, poking out just enough to serve as a shelf for whatever dishes I was using. Faceless people, pixels on a screen and nothing more. But they were friends, people I could talk to without going through the effort of opening my mouth and making my sorely underused vocal chords creak, without going to the trouble of putting on a smile to try and seem normal, or at least functional. By that time my family knew better than to ask me how I was doing or if I needed anything. If I wanted to talk, I would. 
 
 But I was content with my humming metal friends. 
 
 Every couple days, I would sleep. I would try to sleep in the interim as well, too tired to stay sitting, too tired to keep staring at that beautiful slightly-warped CRT. Nothing would come of it. I sat in bed and stared up at the ceiling, at the network of constellations I had picked out of the popcorn texture above me. They were like friends, too. They were always there. I knew exactly where to find them if I needed them. Sometimes I would try to find new constellations, new pictures with new stories behind them, but it felt wrong to try and find new friends. They would only take away from the friends I already knew inside and out. 
 
 For six months I tried to deny that I was lonely. Utterly, completely alone, and I'd done it to myself. I had friends, people made of bone and sinew and hair and smiles and laughter. They tried to see me, too, after I stopped going to see them. They came even though I stank, even though my hair was in knots, even though my room was swimming in filth and rot. Then they stopped coming, and I told myself I did n't care, that I had other people to keep me company, that they were inconsequential. 
 
 But no, I was n't lonely. I was never alone, I had all these friends, I had my constellations on the ceiling and the stains and burns on my desk and the cuts and scabs on my body and my little metal box. It was always on, always. I tried, once, to turn it off, to make my room silent and black so that maybe I could sleep. 
 
 I could n't do it. 
 
 I panicked. 
 
 That was my friend, and there was no hum, no whirring fans, no tiny, rhythmic clicks. My friend was dead. 
 
 I never tried again. 
 
 I took a lot of pills then. Nothing fun, just tylenol and naproxen and benadryl. Oh, *benadryl*. My best friend, the friend I loved more than my box and my stars and my scars and my stains combined. My friend who, sometimes, would grant me sleep. As much as I needed it, craved it, revered it, I hated it. Sleep meant dreams. And dreams were n't good. Nightmares, flashbacks, feverish half-thoughts, shapeless ideas floating just out of reach. 
 
 And always, always, in my dreams I was alone. 
 
 Months passed like this, all blurred and warped in my mind. I can barely recall any details from then. I can barely remember coming out of it, but I know I did. I went to college, I made friends, I reconnected with the friends I had before I retreated to my little gypsum prison. I was happy again, at least for a while. Truly happy. 
 
 But really, nothing changed. 
 
 Even when I'm with the people I love, in my mind I am alone.
