My eyes snap open. Her piercing screams fill my reality for a moment as my consciousness creeps wearily up from the darkness. I had been dreaming in one of those rare moments of peace, I think. I had been in a cold stone room and I had felt alone, warming my weary bones by the light of a flickering fire.

But the memory of that simple little fantasy is already slipping into obscurity as my clouded mind desperately reels around, struggling to find a shred of reality to cling to. Reality feels like it’s in short supply now, slipping through my fingers like grains of soft white sand in a desert.

I am in darkness, a sickly yellow light is creeping in through a pair of rough, home-made curtains from the street-lights outside the wall. But there is nothing to see, only the sound of the voice as she cries out. The sound of her voice is horrendous, it is a terrible screech that penetrates my senses and makes me feel desperate for it to stop.

“Alright, alright,” I say with a groan. I heft myself up in my bed, pushing back the thin cloth covers and begin rubbing my eyes. The screaming of her thin little voice continues. I can hear her huffing her tiny breaths and blasting them out in demanding shrieks. She always wants something, even when I have nothing left to give.

I am alone in this room. He left me before she was born. We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to expect him to shoulder this responsibility, I told myself. Maybe that was true, I didn’t know anymore. Part of me still thinks I wanted a baby so I would never be alone again. That seems bitterly ironic now.

“I’m coming!” I say impatiently, as I snatch a few deep breaths and try to clear my clouded mind. I can’t remember the last time I slept more than a couple of hours. She cries and cries and it never stops. She always wants more from me, always taking everything I have. I can feel my jaw tensing.

I peer over to the the other side of the room just as she wails even louder. I close my eyes and sigh as my thoughts are shaken apart from the exhaustion and the terrible, dreadful noise that fills every corner of the room.

She cries and cries and she never stops. I could never make her stop, no matter what I did. Some nights I would sit alone in my room with her, desperately trying to get her to sleep. I would try changing her, tried feeding her, sang to her, rocked her. But nothing would stop her crying for something I didn’t know how to give her.

And now she’s still crying and I know she’ll be crying forever. I know that noise is all of my reality now. The pills they force me to take can’t stop me from hearing her, but why should they? I couldn’t stop her by putting a pillow over her face and pressing down while her tiny little limbs thrashed around in panic until the sound died out.

But it didn’t stop, and now I know it never will.