I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

Sometimes it’s the people who love us the most that hurt us the hardest; because they can.

Not everybody wants to be somebody. Some people just want to be somebody else.

I built my prison in the way that people often do, with solid walls made from bricks of guilt and obligation.

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. I stop outside the bank and allow the cash machine to swallow my card, before entering my PIN and requesting a small amount of money. I read the unfamiliar and unexpected words on the screen twice: SORRY. INSUFFICIENT FUNDS AVAILABLE.

It’s a strange feeling when buried memories float to the surface without warning. Like having all the air sucked out of your lungs, then being dropped from a great height; the perpetual sense of falling combined with the unavoidable knowledge that you’re going to hit something hard.

We exchange the currency of our dreams for a reality funded by acceptance as we get older.

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.

We all have to learn to act, Aimee. It’s never, ever, a good idea to let strangers see the real you. So long as you never forget who you really are, acting will save you.”

You should always fight, especially when you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.”

When life holds up its final mirror, I hope I’ll still be able to look.

I guess nobody explained to her that even the sun disappears for a while, once its turn to shine is over. All stars are born to die.

We all avoid the truth when we think it might hurt too much.

Sometimes when we put someone on too high a pedestal, it only means they have farther to fall.