To Whomever Gives A Damn

To Whomever Gives A Damn

I’ve grown tired of all of this... my whole life’s a mess, I know it is, and I don’t know how much I can do to fix it... as much as I try, everything always seems to get worse. The words that I feel can’t even convey the kind of pain I’ve dealt with, and still I know that I’m far from worst off in this world. There will always be someone with a worse life than me; there will always be someone better than I am; there will always be someone who needs help more than I ever will. Even so, I can’t help but take a selfish moment out of my day and wonder just what kind of life I have. After all, I know little about myself – who I really am, what I am, who I’ll be... even now, as I grow up (and so quickly, too) and mature into some kind of flower, something never before seen, I don’t know what I’m doing... There’s some kind of hole inside of me where my dreams, my self-awareness should be, and I don’t know how to fix it.

I know it’s my fault... I know that. All of my misgivings are... well, you get the idea. Every night when I lie in bed, empty and cold and alone, I know it’s because of the things that I’ve done – I’m too quiet, I’m too shy, I’m too something. Even my weight – one of the largest sources of my insecurity – is something I know that I could do something about, if I only had the drive to... but I’ve never found a part of myself to say “Oh, let’s fix this.” I’ve never been able to be the one to smile and say I like who I am, and if I don’t like something, I’ll change it. It’s always “Oh, I’ll change this... someday...” or “Well, all I do is get my heart broken every time I try something, so I don’t want to try right now...” I know this isn’t the way to think about things, I really do. And I know that it’s not true, that if I would just open up then I would be able to find someone who would cradle my heart, my soul and fill up that empty void I carry.

But I’m not the kind of person I need to be.

I’ve always just taken everything as it comes, pushing it aside if it didn’t mean enough, or if I couldn’t do it right then. I’ve always been the kind of person who tries to put others before myself, and it’s tiring; it wears me thin and stretches my mind, my soul and my heart to impossible amounts... sometimes, I sit alone and wonder if I’ll ever figure out how to push away those black edges to let myself be born anew, as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. And, as I sit alone and ponder this, I wonder if, perhaps, I’ll meet that someone – the one who will mean most to me, who I can snuggle with when I need comfort or warmth, and who I can look up to forever, and not feel like my real self is squished into some perfect mask, contorted and forced into a shape that someone else might want.

Once a bookworm, always a bookworm, I suppose. I live in a reality where the only things I could ever want are those fantastical things – mythical creatures, beautiful places, even just a simple happy ending – and where those things are the least likely of all. A silent, black cloud hangs over my head, a voice whispering gleefully into my ear, reminding me of all the things that can and will go wrong. How long can I ignore them, I wonder? How long will it be before my soul is consumed by darkness?

It’s so stupid of me, assuming that life would be easy... and yet I constantly live with the hope that it *will* be. I’ve grown into a fine adult, even as young as I am, and yet my mind still holds on to the idea that maybe, somewhere out there, there’s a place that would accept me for who I am... a child in the heart of a dark, impossible world. It is a world that spins and swerves, to hinder our perception of its clouded reality, a brief moment of sunshine that pierces the miasma of malcontent and jealousy. Everyone wants something from this world, and very few people ever gain what they want from it. Those who don’t are left wounded, dropped to the bottom of the pit to try to climb back up into those ranks, their bodies and souls dirty and worn by the long and difficult road to happiness.

Sometimes, I wonder what those tainted men and women are, or were; perhaps an angel, whose wings have been shorn and corroded, stained with the filth of corruption and blackened by the feeling of condescension that permeates the faithless climb from the bottom of the pit all the way back up to the top of the earth? Maybe, just maybe, I’m one of those creatures too – something soulful, clean and begging to fly, but weighed down by a thousand pounds of imperfections, each one a black feather upon my wings. But then... who knows? Who knows who I am?

There is my other fault – I’ve always refused to show people who and what I really am. And, as a result, I’ve dirtied my own soul a little bit, afraid that those around me would tear my heart and my emotions to shreds too small to replace. I’m afraid to be left in the dark, cold pit again, alone and shivering, trembling with the fear that maybe I never was destined to emerge from the dark; that perhaps I was meant to remain here, forever unnoticed, in search of something that doesn’t even exist.