no. 4

All I ever wanted was a constant.
All I wanted, was to know that no matter what, something or someone would always be there. Unchanged.
Unmoved.

I used to think that my parents were a constant. I used to think that they knew all the answers and that they could heal any wound with some rubbing alcohol and bandages. In my youth, I saw them as sweet gods that gave me a perfect life. But then one morning, I woke up to my tender mother's face sopping wet with water and mascara, and my father with a face of stone.
Death has a certain way of stripping people to their core. A way of ripping off their masks and personas to show you who they really are.
My parents were no longer stable. They changed, and we moved a few years later.

I used to think my friends were a constant. My naive 6 year old mentality thought that best friends forever was a everlasting contract. The loyalty I held and still hold to those children at school was and is fierce. I told them everything, I listened to them in return. I offered to be a playmate, a sibling, a shoulder. Little did I know that not all people abide by contracts. Most times, they actually take the contract you two made and light in on fire right in front of you, with their new contract holders laughing in the distance. Falling asleep to tears became my constant for a time.
My friends no longer cared. They changed, we moved on.

When family and friends were no longer enough to sustain me, I turned to the only thing left. I had been taught from a young age that God was always there, that He was constant, that He never left you. And above all, that He loved you. Being a young adult, love was the only thing I seeked, because everything left in the world had disappointed and hurt me. I turned to God in complete desperation. I prayed to him with so much fever that any priest with tremble with jelousy. I trusted Him. Then one cold night, a fire was thrown at the only thing I had left to call home. It went ablaze and by the time it went out, I was no longer a constant.
I was traumatized, I moved into a four walled brick room without windows, as to shut out all the light of God. There is where I still remain. I thought that He had changed, that he had moved on from me as so many others did. I felt betrayed.
Yet, in all honesty, it was me this time.

I'm trying to make windows in my brick wall room.
But chipping away at thick, sturdy, cold brick with bare hands is not an easy task.
And sometimes, I give up.
But I'm still trying.
I need my constant.

Your crumbling piece of compacted silica and concrete,
Charles Darnell