Companion

It would begin in the evening and worsen into the night. My mind would belong not to me, but my burdens. They would chain me down, my body helpless and my self lost.
"I'm alone."
Who knows what provoked it. Periodically but random, like a migraine, but instead with images, rage and tears. The thoughts and feelings overwhelmed me.
"They'll kick me out. I'll be abandoned. I can't live on my own. Why would they do that to someone. I try so hard. I'm just so tired..."
Just a flood of thoughts, so irrational but vivid. One moment, I'd tell myself it's all not real, The next moment, I knew it all had to be true. My sanity would escape me.
"Hey Thomas, want to come out tonight?"
"No."
"Are you Okay?"
"I fucking hate everything and everyone right now."
My young-adult self was still too tender to take it all on; I could not have possibly understood why this happened back then. I could control myself so strongly in front of others, so how could I become so weak in these moments?

She would walk silently toward me. It's something she did not learn; it was perfected by nature. I would be shivering, cheeks wet with salty water, hoping it would all end soon. Did I mean my delusions or my self? In these moments I could care less which...

Emerged from a shadow, she would be beside me, cuddling up for warmth. My hands would hold her. Not tightly, but just enough to take in the comfort that was so quickly offered. She didn't understand why this would happen, but she always knew when I needed to be anchored down to the real world. When my troubles opened she would always beside me.

"Maybe this just is the way it is. Maybe someone else feels all the happiness in the world and so this makes it all even?"
Her answer would be a purr. That was always the answer I needed.
She was the single thing that kept me going when the small black window in the back of my mind would slide open and let the wild things in for the night.

I still thank her today. She still purrs.