The Lies We Live

after high school

"but darling i'd still catch a grenade for you."

Acting is easy when you start believing your own lies. Home has begun to feel like an abandoned asylum. I think I will go crazy in here. On one hand, I would like to escape this nightmare and work to a life in which I am not afraid to exist in.

But this place holds everything I love. It holds fragments of my foundation. The way the living room feels when no one is home. Curtains are drawn, as the light tries to break through the thick fabric. The way my bed holds me as if it knows how I need to be held. And my family, my beautiful family, the most precious things I've ever known, will be the three things hardest to leave behind.

And I hate how ungrateful I sound when talking to them. Almost as if every single terrible feeling ruptures my words, and all they hear is the disappointment they've raised. I can't control how upset I am with things are, and I want them to know that it isn't them who I feel a hatred towards. I don't know how to say 'I love you' without sounding angry.

Even looking at her hurts these days. She just sits there and does nothing. She doesn't listen to me and cries herself to sleep. I love my mother, but when I do, I stop loving myself. There are no words to convey the guilt I feel for leaving her. I owe her this, my time and my love because she cared for me when I was a child.

And yes her bipolar tendencies made me feel unloved and alone at times, but I've got the same genes in me. Sometimes I don't simply feel angry, but rather that the anger is me. A consuming, raging flame that thirsts for the destruction of others. I know what humans are capable of, and I can not help but feel sympathy for those who have wronged me. Eventually, I will forgive even those who have stolen the best parts of me.

I also realize that her sickness is beyond me. No medicine, or help, or love will cure her. I am not capable of curing her. The only person capable of saving my mother is herself. Because the change we opt for does not occur spontaneously, we must want it badly enough to do something about it. Only in our actions will we find progression. So you see, I can only convince her that her wellness is something worth striving for.

It's easy to get lost in the suburbs, everything looks the same. To search for authenticity in such a place requires tearing down every townhouse down this street. But because I have lived here so long, I need not destroy the walls, but simply peer through the cracks.

I don't think we hate high school because of peer pressure, or the education system, but perhaps because it is the place where we first realize the true nature of others. When the lines that separate us by race suddenly become sharper, and we realize what is expected of us. Even more disturbing; the insincerity of others. Maybe it is not the outright insults or  backhanded glares that break our hearts. It is much more painful to realize how little our friends care for us through subtle acts of indifference.

I have received both insults and insincerity from my peers, and I can testify that the latter is a much harder grievance to overcome. Outspoken people are often heavily scrutinized for not only daring thoughts but the fact that they choose to voice them. Getting out of here is the only way I can turn the disgrace into a degree.

I don't like the person I am in this town. Or at least the person that everyone has made me out to be. I do not want to live my whole under a facade because my home life is sh*t, or because I can't find happiness on even the brightest of days. I don't want meaningless relationships or shallow conversations. But this is all this town has to offer.

In a year's time, I will leave this place and start a life undefined by my surroundings. As the actuality of it all sets in, I am terrified of the future because I'm not even sure what home will even mean anymore. The people will no longer be predictable, and I will have to meet people to actually understand the way their minds tick.

But I also acknowledge that this is so necessary for me. I have to create a life for myself that doesn't make me want to throw myself off a bridge. I have to have interests and values that are not defined by other people, they must come as second nature to me.

The sun glints through leaves and changes their color.  They catch raindrops in a way, that the water never loses its form. Unlike people, they are capable of looking beautiful, both in isolation and amongst a crowd. I can see them reaching up to the heavens, and it only makes me understand that no one really wants to be here.

The leaves are beautiful, but I am not allowed to cherish the silent moments between nature and myself. I have to stay focused on my own miserable life in pathetic attempts to improve it. I only wish that I could stop caring about the world I've created for myself in order to appreciate the world that exists beyond me.