The Lies We Live

average

"Don't catch you slippin' now."

There is a bird that flies with no purpose in mind, and one that has been caged so long, it finds comfort in the walls. I find the world hazy, society lazily organized, I feel like this is all a waste of time. Like even when I'm happy there's a feeling of surrealism, this doesn't feel real. Out there I am a poor imitation of myself. I laugh too long and smile too wide, in many ways I am mocking myself. You are trapped in a person so marginalized.

The world continues to spin, changing the earth, always changing. I find it hard to feel grounded in the impermanence of it all. I feel that indecision is what we do not because we're unsure, but because we want something that seems so out of reach. I will always be barely grazing my fingers against the things I'm looking for.

Like how do you fall in love? Is it obvious when you first meet them or is it gradual, an acquired taste in the mouths of the lonely? Does it happen one day, when you're with them and it suddenly hits you? Or is it when they're gone, and you realize just how much life sucks without them.

There is a silence that lingers in the hallways. Resonating off the lockers, my ears know nothing but the emptiness of a hollow cavern. I try to tell myself that this will pass, that my life will mean something one day, but I think being sad was better. At least I felt something, and somehow that meant that I cared. But I don't now. 

It is almost over. My glory days. The time where I was supposed to flourish from insecure girl to a confident and promising young lady. What a joke. I live empty days because it is hard to find meaningfulness in a life that has been so ordained by the ordinary. In four years, I will become an IT professional, and lose even this part of myself. And I sit back and let the world descend into chaos.

The problem is that I care. I can't breathe when I hear about sexual assault cases. My eyes light up when I talk about wave-particle duality. I like feeling weightless despite the gravity of earth. And I see people hurting and I want to change the world. 

But these are just words. An arrangement of letters that are somehow supposed to make sense of a world that makes no sense. Why do we let people get guns when we know that by doing this, we are giving permission to act. To shoot the monsters we face, instead of making peace with them. 

Everything I love is mediocre and replaceable. My family, my friends, my life. There are at least a million parents in the world that will neglect me the way my parents do. A million friends I can make and waste time with; after all, are we not only passing the time in the least painful way possible?

Each day is spent aimlessly. There's work to do, but the universities have already accepted us, and we've already gotten our timetables for next year. I am in a rut that I can never escape. These people have blank faces and hollow souls; I see no livelihood in their eyes. It must be what they see in mine.

But I want my life to mean something. I want the quiet conversations in the solitude of night. I want to smile, but for real this time. Like I'm not trying so hard to be happy and I just am. I want to love someone that's real. Like when I hug them, I know they want to be there. I don't want to talk to people and still feel lonely at the end of the day. 

This life feels like such a waste, but I am hoping so bad that just once, something amazing will happen, and it will stay. I hope to god that it will stay.