Eliza and Her Monsters

by Francesca Zappia

My superpower is the ability to draw for hours without realizing what time it is or that I haven’t eaten in too long. I succeed in disappearing in my disguise, and I excel at standing out in my true form.

That computer is my rabbit hole; the internet is my wonderland. I am only allowed to fall into it when it doesn’t matter if I get lost.

It’s a quote from Doctor Faustus. “This word ‘damnation’ terrifies not me, For I confound Hell in Elysium.”

There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt. The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster, though, is smart. It’s always watching, and when I am completely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. Even when I know it’s coming, I can’t stop it.

Do you read the MS fanfiction? Sometimes. You know rainmaker? Everyone knows rainmaker. Hi.

so I turn my face to the empty space beside me whenever I need to breathe. I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for myself, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think: I am here. I am okay.

“Do you ever have an idea for a story, or a character, or even a line of dialogue or something, and suddenly it seems like the whole world is brighter? Like everything opens up, and everything makes sense?”

the characters themselves. The struggles they have to go through, and when you really love them, how much they affect you. When the characters are good, they make you care about everything else. That’s why I draw them. It probably sounds dumb, but they’re like real people to me. And this will probably sound worse, but sometimes I like them better than real people. I can empathize with characters. Real people are harder.

“No one knows. I think it was the pressure.” “I guess I can’t really be mad about it, then.” “Why?” He shrugs. “How can you be mad that something doesn’t happen, when it would hurt another person? If she had to quit for her health, then I’m glad she did. You shouldn’t have to kill yourself for your art. No matter how many fans you have.”

I am an absolute wreck of a human being, and right now I am completely okay with it.

How can I want something so badly but become so paralyzed every time I even think about taking it?

I don’t want to be the girl who freezes when confronted with new friends, or the outside world, or the smallest shred of intimacy. I don’t want to be alone in a room all the time. I don’t want to feel alone in a room all the time, even when there are other people around.

That moment when they become people? I think you have. It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? One day they’re parents, and the next they say something racist, or get a cut that takes too long to heal, or make a simple mistake driving, and a facade falls away and they become mortals like the rest of us. After the facade is gone, it can never come back.

The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.

Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten.

I can’t cry and I can’t draw and I can’t get online and I can’t talk to anyone, so what good am I? What is the point of me?

Eliza, your worth as a person is not dependent on the art you create or what other people think of it.”

“Worth as a person is not based on any tangible evidence. There’s no test for it, no scale. Everyone’s got their own idea of what it is.

I’m thinking about killing myself. Of course it won’t be okay.

Creating art is a lonely task, which is why we introverts revel in it,

Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their own—and it’s up to us to make them mean something.