To love you | Malum

Ch. 4 - Humor + Sadness

Michael + Ch. 4 - Humor + Sadness

You know those moments when you desperately try to come up with something funny, hoping that somebody along the way will laugh, and will find enjoyment in the things you do or say? That just doesn't happen with me. I was never the class clown growing up, or voted the funniest guy for the yearbook. I was just Michael, and sometimes, being just me gets pretty boring.

My father was always the kind of guy everyone wanted to be around, with his flawless hair as a teenager to the comedic jokes he made around his friends. He was known to man-kind for enlightening a spark within everyone he knew, and he wondered why that didn't rub off on me as easily. Perhaps it was because I had a mother who hid away from the crowds and read books under the school staircases. She wasn't social like my dad, which made them completely opposite, and I guess I understand why they say opposites attract now. You need a little flavor in life to taste something good, and if you can't taste something, then you taste and feel nothing, and nothing is boring. I'm so tired of being this boring person nobody looks up to or cares about.

It's sad to think about it really; where I went wrong in the family tree. I only disappoint rather than please, and being in a wheelchair has limited my achievements. I'm not a scholar who's going to college to get a bachelors degree in mathematics, and I'm not a history geek or an art major. I'm just me, and sometimes labeling myself as nothing but the thin air that wraps itself around my finger like string makes me feel limited to the world around me. Limited to the things I can and can't do, like I'm holding a knife to my throat and spilling empty cans of paint that hold some sort of hope that everything will be okay again, but it's not.

Nothing makes me feel okay, except for that boy who laughs every second he can get, and takes advantage of the things he's capable of doing, such as playing football, basketball and soccer, walking outdoors past midnight, drunk out of his mind because his friends convinced him to live a little. But what was the definition of living, truly? Sitting in a dark room with candles to assure yourself that darkness doesn't exist? Pulling flowers off of their stems to give you some sort of satisfaction? Telling yourself that you'll be just like the person you passed by in the street or saw on social media time after time? Is that the definition of living? Because if it is, it's not something I want to do.

But at the same time, I'm not sure what I want to do, since I'm already restricted enough and incapable of being the one thing I wanted to be; a football player. And even standing in the middle of the empty arena, my hands on the ball with my father gripping a hold of my shoulders to keep me steady as I attempt to stand, didn't make me feel all that great about myself. I shouldn't have to struggle with doing simple tasks, and taking action of throwing and catching and running to get a ball that somehow landed in the other teammates hands. It's all I could see, and quite frankly, I didn't like having flashbacks of being trampled over as I shot my final goal the night before I was recklessly invited to that party and damaged for what feels like eternity. This is my eternity, my fate, and I'm better off living my life as a dumb accountant who sits behind a desk twenty four seven rather than being out there, with adrenaline running through my system as I lead the team to the championship.

I was never good enough for the rest of the world, so why would I be good enough now?

"Okay Mike, I'll be on the opposite side of the field. Your job is to try to get the ball from me, and if you do so successfully, you score a point. It won't show on the board since the electricity out here isn't running but it's the thought that counts."