Sometimes I Lie

by Alice Feeney

A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too.

I fix a smile on my face before stepping into the office and reminding myself that this is what I do best: change to suit the people around me. I can do “Amber the friend” or “Amber the wife,” but right now it’s time for “Amber from Coffee Morning.” I can play all the parts life has cast me in, I know all my lines; I’ve been rehearsing for a very long time.

People are not mirrors—they don’t see you how you see yourself.

My eyes do that sometimes: focus on a person’s imperfections, momentarily forgetting that they can see me seeing the things they’d rather I didn’t.

I’ve been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing.

Beyond the invisible walls, life goes on, but I am still, silent, and contained.

We are all made of flesh and stars, but we all become dust in the end. Best to shine while you can.

It’s not the drugs. You’re going mad.

Sometimes stuff happens when you don’t mean it and just because no one believes you, it doesn’t mean that you did it on purpose.

I tend to forget my dreams as soon as I’ve woken up—they’ve never shown me the answer to anything.

Stars cannot shine without darkness,

Memories can’t hurt anyone, unless they are shared.

The dead are not so very far away when you really need them; they’re just on the other side of an invisible wall. Grief is only ever yours and so is guilt. It’s not something you can share.

Things have changed since we were children, perhaps not as much as we might have liked, but the world is a different place. Faster, louder, lonelier. Unlike the world around us, we haven’t changed at all, not really. History is a mirror and we’re all just older versions of ourselves; children disguised as adults.

We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.

Little girls are different from little boys: they’re made of sugar and spice and scar for life.

Some people appear happy on the outside and you only know they’re broken inside if you listen as well as look.