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I’ve drunk so much poison I fear my lips are stained with it
they tell you to love yourself before you let anyone else so now here I stand on this mountain of confidence and achievements I’ve spent my whole life building and I look around wondering if anyone will even know how to find me all the way up here
that everything inside of me is something someone else didn’t want
but above all I am tired of trying to be anything else
I’ve lived inside of my head for so long sometimes I forget there’s an entire world outside of it
and I wonder if I will ever be able to unlearn all of the hateful things society has taught me to think about myself
gifted is a classroom for special children who have learned to see average as a dirty word remarkable is the achievements and goals and milestones you’re expected to have so you can be consistently growing above those who are ordinary and I wonder if I had been average all along how I would’ve turned out would that version of me be better would she be free of the crippling expectations the internal need to be better and more in order to deserve to be alive would she be more alive
sweat dripping down my nose muscles quivering, begging for rest and realizing that was just one of many climbs to come
this home of flesh and blood is trying its best to keep me afloat working overtime to keep up with the demands of a healthy society and I refuse to resent or criticize it the way everyone else does when it’s doing the best it fucking can
I wonder if I will be remembered at all
there is fear in the memories that resurface from the depths of the years I’ve repressed in the versions of myself I’m still trying to escape and there is fear in the days that lie ahead in the pain I haven’t yet felt
and even now I must remind myself do not shrink do not quiet do not twist and turn and eclipse yourself into a version of you that is easier for other people to digest
no one understands why I dread my birthday why my shoulders tense like I’m preparing to be struck being the center of attention on a day to celebrate me is dictated by the ability to have others around to celebrate and each year it’s a sting of a reminder of all the people who aren’t it’s a wait I don’t want to endure to see who arrives I prefer how invisible their indifference is the rest of the year
