can you see me now?

My need for being liked has always been something that scared me a little. This, almost primal like necessity for masking myself to fit into other people's ideas of me was fuelled by fear that clung to me like second skin. 

Everyday I put on an image, screaming back at the world "This is the real me!" while secretly hoping nobody was looking too closely. I couldn't keep on paying the price for love a man was charging so I looked for it in places willing to give it for free. 

I scraped it off of needles and packets of pills, snorting it up in lines until my head felt dizzy. It wrapped me inside of its warm embrace like a snake does its prey. I was soon choking, gasping for air while it poured, poured and poured. 

There was always more, yet never enough and for the first time I didn't care if I was liked. Love was flowing through my veins after all, so why did it matter?

I cherished the moments I didn't recognize myself anymore because it meant I was somebody else, somebody who was loved. I made a habit out of it, an addiction I couldn't - wouldn't - escape. I became a performer for the masses, simultaneously praying for somebody to see past my glazed eyes and to never really see me again.