I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

Not everybody wants to be somebody. Some people just want to be somebody else. Acting is easy; it’s being me that I find difficult.

A bird never chooses its own cage.

Sorry. Sorry is easier to say than it is to feel. Even easier to write.

Denial is the most destructive form of self-harm.

I wonder where other people go when they turn off the lights at night. Do they all drift and dream? Or are there some, like me, who wander somewhere dark and cold within themselves, digging around inside the shadows of their blackest thoughts and fears, clawing away at the dirt of memories they wish they could forget? Hoping nobody else can see the place they have sunk down into?

People would ask why I stayed with him if they knew the truth, and I’d tell them the truth if they did: because I love us more than I hate him, and because he’s the only man I’ve ever pictured myself having a child with. Despite everything he did to hurt me, that was still all I wanted: for us to have a baby and a chance to start again. A brand-new version of us.

Papering over the cracks doesn’t mean they’re not there, but life is prettier when you do.

Ignorance isn’t bliss; it’s fear postponed to a later date.

Sometimes it only takes one person to believe in you to change your life forever. Sometimes it only takes one person not believing in you to destroy it. Humans are a highly sensitive species.

We are all conditioned and fine-tuned to our own unique brand of normal; we wear it like a fingerprint. We’re taught to fit in with others and learn what is expected of us from the moment we are born. Everything we ever do is an act.