Terror

ur diktsamling:  Fading Souls They Seized

”I hate April
Not as much as i hate May
But it’s still unbearable
From the 2 of April
To the end of the month
Before May hits me even harder

I can’t forget
Not even 3 years later
I simply cannot rest
While injustice like that
Is still being committed
While the agony it traps the victim in
Is still being invalidated
Still being questioned
I can’t find any peace
As long as there’s people in the world
That would treat a recent teenager
So mercilessely harsh
Like they’re utterly worthless
I can’t breathe out
Long as there’s still people like her
Living her story
From those 3 years ago

Kudden
That silly spirit with the fluffy hair
Kept her chin up
To keep herself cheerful and bright
Like that little girl weeping in her mind
The same sobs that echo in my head
Even that maimed and miserable ghost
Was once a curious and optimistic kid
And Kudden was once so passionate
About her friends and angels
She would’ve done anything
Just to keep her friends happy
To cheer them up
Or be a listening ear when they needed
Trying to keep up their hopes
And provide them with a safe space
Regularly hearing those sweet words
”You’re the best”
”You saved my life”
She held that club so dear

She never stopped loving them
And never stopped feeling guilty
About her disappearance
But she was unable to keep at it
Keep being at everyones service
When she was desperately struggling
To crawl away from suffocation

The vivid memories haunt me
They flash before my eyes
And grasp me tightly
Every so often

2 April 2022
Kudden was probably up to the usual
Writing or texting
The disfigure barged into her room
None of the usual short knocking
Immediate confrontation
Immediately sharp gaze and tone
Immediately raised voice
Resulting in immediate shock
Immediate fear
The panic of survival instinct

Those pills belonging to the disfigure
Her prescribed narcotics
She had realized who took them
The pills were still hidden in the room
In a small box
In Kuddens bag
The plan hadn’t gotten into action
Just yet
But there was a date set
Orchestrated for later that month

After the shortest while
The disfigure was screaming
At the soul that was already a mess
Trying to de-escalate the situation
Anxiously trying to make her calmer
”I didn’t steal them”
”Please”
”I don’t know where they are”
”I’m sorry”
Her voice was breaking
Even through her tries to keep it steady
Every other part was frozen in place
Valid enough
Since there was no way to escape
And no changes in tone
That yelling
Still pierces through my mind regularly
It never leaves

Worry was understandable
Concern was justified
Except it wasn’t the problem
It wasn’t what the screaming was about
”You filthy thief”
”You need to start considering us too”
”You’re so selfish you hear that?”
”Imagine my son finding your corpse
He’s even younger than you
Do you want that to traumatize him?”
”I could call the police on you for theft
Do you hear that?
Do you get that?”

Well shoot
If Kudden was previously unsure of it
She was definitely made certain
About her plan
In that moment
The disfigure eventually left the room
Saying she was gonna come back
And the panic latched onto Kudden
Like a rubber band

Hectically fiddling with her phone
She tried to get a text forward
To her friends
If anything
They’d know what the cause was
In the case of that day being her last

”I’m in physical pain everyday
She knows but she doesn’t believe me
I’ve told her about my hallucinations
I’ve tried to explain what’s wrong
She completely denies all of it
She secretly cancels all my meetings
With the psychiatry
Because she doesn’t have the energy
And Social Services listen to her now
Instead of me”

No escaping the angry tears now
”I’m completely certain
That they’re suddenly gonna start
Validating my issues
When i inevitably die
They’re gonna blame it on that
And blame it on my parents
Even if it’s not their fault
It’s hers
And the authorities
They are responsible
But i know they won’t acknowledge that
It will all be in vain
And i’m so exhuasted”

Frantic sobs and hyperventilating
Hitting her own head until she got dizzy
The disfigure knocks shortly
And lets herself inside the room again
Kudden turns her head away
Against the window
There was no way to hide her tears
But never in a million decades
That she’d willingly show her weakness
She’d learned that the hard way

The disfigure wasn’t yelling anymore
But her tone was no less intense
Suddenly she speaks about concern
But Kudden is too disoriented to listen
Holding her breath
Until she is forced to breathe out
Before holding her breath again
Anything to stay silent
So her panic attack isn’t audible
Even if the tears still weren’t compliant

The other girl living there
Joins the disfigure at the door
Now they’re both apparently concerned
”This is exactly what my mother did”
Says the girl who could’ve been a sister
Somewhere in all the chaos
The disfigure explained
”The day that [V] was placed here
She’d been crawling around on the floor
Gathering her mothers scattered pills”
Unbearable guilt
It seemed so correct in that moment
She was destroying the family
She was ruining their days
But even i can still not figure out
Why the disfigure kept Kudden
If she was so horrible and difficult

From the warmer winter snow
That welcomed April into the picture
After the already unbearable March
The sound of her terror still haunts me
I remember her frantic hitches for air
Those moments of audible sobbing
Her inconsolable turmoil
Is something i’ll never forget

To the clearer summer
That waved the month farewell
And grieved the death
Of a tortured soul

Nobody can say she didn’t try
Kudden loved the people in that house
That is what hurt her the most
She cared
Their words hit her so much harder
Than they’ll ever realize
If only they knew
The insecurity and anxiety they created

She knew she wouldn’t survive
If she stayed trapped there
Over the summer
Her time was limited
Seconds were counting down

She wrote arguments
Emails
Studies
Lists
She made cases
Accounted for everything
Documented everything
Because failing wasn’t an option
She didn’t want to die
And she tried to gather evidence
Recording conversations
Took screenshots of text messages
Tried to build a ground
For her demands to be deemed correct

But ofcourse
The judges and disfigure
Didn’t want any leverage against them
To be put into existence
And somehow
The disfigure found out
About the records being gathered
And she acted immediately

The confrontations
Were a regular thing at this point
And one day
Kudden was made liable
For the amount of evidence
That she’d manage to scrape up

31 April 2022
The disfigure barged into her room
Bluntly confronting her
And sharply telling her
To delete the evidence
Kudden tried to feign ignorance
But was quickly made to shut up
As the disfigure got up in her face
Sitting down on her bed
Unusually close
Way too physically close
And it served to frighten
Enough for Kudden to admit and delete

It doesn’t matter
How many people invalidate her fear
Telling her she was overreacting
Because they might’ve thought
That they knew the situation
That the disfigure
Wouldn’t ever lay a hand on her
But they’ve got no idea
How exactly it looked
Behind those closed doors
The facts between the lines

Regardless of what they said
Or what they believed
Kudden was scared for a reason
It seemed like she was the only one
That knew exactly
What the disfigure could be capable of
Kudden knew
That she would
And that she definitely might have
Had Kudden not obeyed her orders
Right that second

Going back and forth again
With the usual guilt tripping
”Am i not worth anything to you?”
”Why do you think i’m so horrible?”
”Why are you doing this to me?”
”I have a son who is worried about me”
”You need to start considering others”
And Kudden is just tired
So tired
The discomfort was unbearable
She wanted out of it
Out of her skin
Out of her mind
There was nothing of value in it anyway
Not anymore
Not after they tore it off her

When she was left in her room again
The foggy thought distortions hit her
Blinded her completely
And she put her shoes on
With her jacket
To go out on a ”walk”
Lucky that people can’t read minds

Oh the hazy memories
All i remember is the strong wind
But not only that
I remember her unsteady voice
How it was breaking
I remember the familiar panic

Dancing along the lines of a rail
Fully detached
Fully dissociated
Until frantic calls start to get through
From the disfigure
From short and unknown numbers
From best friends
But there was no hesitation
Not yet
Just waiting
Working up the courage
To go through with it

A memory hits
And suddenly she realized
What the persistent calls meant
Next time it rang
She picked up
And talked to that close friend
Not having to wait long
Before being struck with terror

They know
All of them
Even the disfigure
Paramedics are on their way
A split second
Is all it takes
For composure to be lost
And on the other line
That close friend
Is trying to decipher possible sentences
Between Kuddens stuttering
Weakly repeating ”no” and ”damn it”
Before she catches sight
Of the disfigures car

She hangs up
To call her mother
As the ambulance follows the first car
Driving through the passage
But to get any closer to her
They’d have to get out of the cars
And search the actual rails

One or two signals go through
Before her mother picks up
Sobbing hysterically by this point
Stuttering as she explains the situation
”The ambulance is around somewhere”
”I can’t do this anymore”
”Nobody even cares
They all think i’m overdramatic”
”Mom i’m scared”

A fast train passes by
Not that far away
From where Kudden is standing
On the hard rocks
Between the rail and the fence
She could feel the wind of it go by
It was like a fever dream

By the time the train had fully passed
She was at the next passage
Over the rails
Where the ambulance had just arrived
The paramedics got out of the car
And the call was interrupted
She was paralyzed
Only thing she could bring herself to do
Was cover her mouth with her hand
And cry
Reality felt so overwhelmingly real
During that intense moment

They brought her inside the ambulance
She was frantically stuttering
Repeating the same words
”Please don’t let her in”
”I don’t feel safe with her”
It was hard to get anything sensible out
But she managed to explain enough
About the situation
For them to honor her wish

Questions and tears later
They started driving
To bring her to the hospital
For a suicide evaluation

But the truth is
They brought an empty shell
To the emergency room
Because Kudden died on that rail
And her soul still lingers
Haunting every trainrail i pass by

Oh i’ll truly never forget
Her miserable death
That was all in vain”

När en upplevelse fortsätter leva långt efter att ögonblicket egentligen tagit slut uppstår något som inte längre går att placera i tiden på ett normalt sätt, och den här dikten bär just den sortens tyngd där minnet inte längre fungerar som en återblick utan som ett återkommande tillstånd som tränger sig in i nuet gång på gång. Det blir tydligt hur berättelsen inte bara handlar om en händelse, utan om hur en människa kan fastna i efterklangen av den, där varje detalj fortsätter att leva vidare som om den vägrar acceptera att den borde vara över.

Det som framträder mest tydligt är hur utsatthet och misstro vävs samman till en erfarenhet där den som lider inte bara kämpar med sin egen inre verklighet utan också med omgivningens tolkningar av den, och där varje försök att förklara sig riskerar att vändas till ännu en bekräftelse på att man inte blir förstådd. I den dynamiken uppstår en särskilt smärtsam ensamhet, eftersom det inte bara handlar om att vara i en svår situation, utan om att inte få den erkänd på ett sätt som gör den möjlig att bära tillsammans med någon annan.

Samtidigt finns det en genomgående känsla av att kommunikationen mellan människor i dikten aldrig riktigt når fram, där ord antingen kommer för sent, för hårt eller inte alls, och där tystnaden mellan replikerna blir lika betydelsefull som själva orden. Det skapar en miljö där varje interaktion bär på en risk för missförstånd som snabbt eskalerar till något mycket större än det från början var, vilket förstärker känslan av att vara instängd i en situation som hela tiden rör sig men aldrig blir mer begriplig.

Det är också slående hur minnet av personen som kallas Kudden inte enbart framstår som en individ utan också som ett slags ekon av alla de versioner hon behövde vara i olika stunder för att överleva, där hennes identitet inte längre känns sammanhållen utan snarare uppdelad i olika tillstånd av rädsla, omsorg, skuld och utmattning. Denna splittring gör att berättelsen inte bara handlar om vad som hände henne, utan också om hur mycket en människa kan tvingas bära samtidigt innan det inte längre går att hålla ihop sig själv på ett fungerande sätt.

När dikten rör sig mot slutet och gränsen mellan liv och död blir mer symbolisk än konkret uppstår en särskild sorts tystnad som inte känns tom utan full av efterverkningar, där själva frånvaron av en person blir lika närvarande som deras tidigare existens. Det är i den paradoxen som textens tyngsta känsla vilar, i insikten om att vissa erfarenheter inte avslutas när de tar slut, utan fortsätter att leva vidare i dem som blev kvar, som ett slags inre landskap som aldrig riktigt slutar förändra formen på den som bär det vidare.