In my minds eye I hold a tattered blanket close to me. It's a thin barrier of protection and a thin cloak of illusion. It's a patchwork quilt, faded, and tattered, old. It's as old as me, or at least as old as the memories in my head are. The ones that I allow myself to remember, or the ones that keep haunting me -- I can't remember which way it is. Each patch is a friend that I knew or used to know, the frayed ones on the edge are people far removed from my life, but I still hold some of their memories wrapped up against me. The newer ones are people I know right now, but I never know which ones will stay and which ones will somehow migrate towards the end of the blanket, towards the periphery of my memory. I'm clutching it close tonight, every night I do and hope I don't cross that thin line that I seem to be walking everyday. The line between being alive (or whatever you call this desolate life), and being in a temporary madness only wanting for it to end, to scream out and cry at the same time and to want my mind so dulled that I can't think anymore, so that I feel dead and can escape the tantrums and rages of my emotions that make me lose control and only remember things in vague descriptions of color and displaced memories that don't seem to belong to me. It all seems so fake to remember times like that, when I break down and the world falls apart, leaving just me and my emotions and the world to confront each other. Each time me losing, for I have already broken down and the tears are clouding not only my vision but my mind until I'm not thinking straight and nothing makes sense except the need to escape the hurt. I've been treading this line between madness and depression, each day hoping that I can continue this weak effort, even though it consumes me totally, physically and emotionally. So far I haven't crossed that line again, but I'm afraid of each new day. I'm afraid of sleeping, and I'm afraid of not sleeping. I'm afraid of myself, and I'm afraid of everyone I know. All I have to protect me is an imaginary blanket from my own madness, my own imaginary fears.