I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

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

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.

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.

You can’t allow the past to steal your present, but if you siphon off just the right amount, it can help fuel your future.

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

We’ve all got so busy staring down at our screens that we’ve forgotten to look up at the stars. I think it can be dangerous to spend too long watching the lives of others; you might run out of time to live your own. Technology is devolving the human race. Eating up our emotional intelligence, spitting out any remnants of privacy it can’t quite swallow. The world will keep on spinning and the stars will always shine, regardless of whether anyone is looking.

sharing the same blood does not necessarily make you family.

We are born alone and we die alone, and we’re all a little bit afraid of being forgotten.

Take the leap, Aimee. You’ll only fall if you forget you can fly.”