27 october 2025 ☆ tw - mentions self-deprivation . he hadn't touched food in a couple of days. he has done so on purpose. it wasn't that he wasn't hungry. he felt quite hollow inside in all honesty. but he enjoyed the feeling of hunger because it was a hole he could identify. he knew he was missing something. a lot, really. he was full of holes as a sponge and, like a sponge, he could absorb things, pour them into his many holes, but his holes would never be filled. perhaps if he could identify the holes, see what he was missing, he could find a way to fill himself up. but he had tried almost everything. the holes were nameless still. so hunger, and isolation, and a voluntary deprivation of simple and necessary things came as a comfort. for when he felt raw with hunger, or mad with loneliness, or some other like torment, it came as a sort of twisted comfort. now, he was very aware of the effect that such abstinance had on him. yes, of course, the physical cost of malnourishment was great in and of itself. but the mental injuries he had dealt to himself in his attempts at bringing his mind temporary reprieve were worse. of them the blows brought on by isolation were the worst. he found himself trapped in his mind every second of every hour spent alone. within minutes he could think of her to the point of rage, relive the terrors of his early years and dread the terrors to come, and think of a dozen reasons why everything was his fault. in his time spent avoiding eye contact with people whose concerned stares could fold up and crumple his very soul, he had become an expert at making himself the villain. from a young age he had made himself everyone else's scapegoat, regardless of how little he was involved. if he was involved at all, he automatically assumed he had to be the instigator. the fault could never be his father's. no, he was just in the way, or he had just been careless, or he should have tried harder. the fault could never be his friends'. they just didn't see the way their words hurt him because he hadn't told them. they just didn't know he was in pain because he hadn't opened up. they just didn't know there was a bruise there because they hadn't watched him receive it. the fault could never be her's. she hadn't known he loved her because he hadn't told her lately. she had just forgotten the darkness that spanned every bit of his life because he hadn't reminded her for a while. he simply hadn't pointed out the way his skin always had a spot of purple somewhere, the way his eyes cried out for a hand to hold, the way his bones had started to hold him closer- so she did not see that. it was his fault. it always was. he had a tendancy to make plenty of his own mistakes. and he had always seen himself as having a tendancy to make others'. "so?" he blinked. she had asked him something. "do you want to get ice cream?" he smiled. and he nodded. and he followed her to fill one of the only holes he could ever see through.
