Saturday, February 11, 2012

On the margins

I look down at my badge, hesitantly, confirming my insecurities with your impressions of me:
Uneducated, unrefined, weak, rueful. Sold.
Do I exude so much pity in my eyes, posture and sound?
Do I speak volumes in your mind of the young and the optimally hopeful?
Or do you shake your head thinking of me, the minimally decorated, the mediocre, the explorer?
Or do you wish you were someone else too?

I'm standing in a maze of only walls,
stuck in one place but I still see the sky above,
it illuminates my skin, widens my eyes even,
yet when I search for my reflection, all I find is more walls.
The current is heard softly in my ears,
yet the rain always comes and I lose my way.

I write and write and write my heart away
and when I'm done, I always adjust and eliminate. I never just leave it alone.
In my mind, it'll never be good enough. Not good enough to explain the sheer disappointment in my heart, the emptiness in my soul, and the darkness in my path.
So here I am.
Carrying on conversations that I know will make it worse
but I start them and I keep them. I latch on to them.

I pour my coffee black and tall in the morning
earnestly, vainly, hoping that today will be different.
But it's always a tiresome game.
I paint my face only half squinting at my canvas because even I can't stand my reflection.
A youthful glow turned to gray. Reddish blue circles under my eyes and purple veins stick out on my forehead. I itch them curiously, where did you come from?
And then there's the broken white hairs painfully reminding me of my mortal existence.
And when I see this, I cry.

But just as germs latch on to wounds, my tears have latched on to my misery.
I needed an antibody to break them up, but you didn't help me.
With your calm hands resting on your king-size thighs, you did the worst thing your kind could do.
In our very first session, you diagnosed me.
You showed me what germs can do. Spread. Infect. Grow.
In my mind stands loudly the impression you left of me: young, paranoid, lost and lonely.
How dare you? How dare you claim 'psychotheapy' as your expertise?
Your words now only exist as skeletons--they bear no depth.
I hate on you, curse you silently as you ask 'do you have any questions for me?'
Yes, fuck you. And why the hell are you charging me for a useless session not worth my borrowed time. But I don't.
I do the only thing I know how to do well--I go back into the game, with difficulty and with great effort. Hah. I'm kidding myself. I wish my words mattered in some poignant ending. But they don't because they're never heard.

I haven't met others like me. Maybe you're out there right now, pen in hand, jotting down the very same thoughts on loose leaf--better yet, maybe you're longing for me just as much as I'm longing for you. Why is there an ocean between us?

I often wonder, good, able-bodied and healthy as I am, why do I seek pain? Why do I wish you would just come on to me, and yell so loudly in my face.
But come on, what kind of prophecy is that? Sure not one Mom raised me to believe. Who taught me this? No one but me.

There's no empathy, no voice, no clout.
'Screw this and screw that' is my mantra.
Choices are all around me but I just stick to the 9 to 5.
The back-breakin', toes flinching, mouth watering, mind-dozing, empty days--where only the first and the last of the month matter. No swift changes. Only the carousel that'll bring me 'round and 'round.

They didn't teach me this in school.
Universities mustn't only teach fields, but they must teach you life. Stock up on handbooks for living and never run out.

I watch in anxious boredom as the passerbys sweep by my small, near non-existent presence.
I'm outside looking in. I'm inside looking inside.
I am everything at once, with no returns.

TBC