As I Am ✔️

PROLOGUE:

Confused is the best word I can find to describe my current mental state, confused, and somewhat fearful.

Of course there are other dormant emotions inside my head too, feelings and sensations that I have felt for years that simply lie subtly beneath the surface of my introverted exterior, but this bubbling confusion is different.

This confusion is riveting, boiling, alive. It makes me question my own being, my own past and my own future as if I have not lived through it - like somebody has wiped my mind of all it's memories. This confusion causes me to question everything I've ever said to myself, every choice I've ever made, everything I was ever sure of - just as I was once sure that I wouldn't ever be that girl, I can no longer promise myself that.

I was once sure that I wouldn't secretly fawn over somebody that I would never be able to greet in public because it wasn't deemed socially acceptable by others. I was once sure that I wouldn't be so completely captivated by somebody that I could lose hours at a time just thinking about them, or about an 'us' that wouldn't ever exist.

On some nights, as I wordlessly stare up at my bedroom ceiling, praying that I am not that girl, desperate almost, despite knowing that his actions, his words, his looks, and my knowledge of his being has turned me into that girl, regardless of my own wants.

It's a feeling that I can't ignore or overlook, his image branded into my mind by a powerful consciousness that I can't control, his words so memorable to me that it's as if they've been tattooed onto my brain.

Why do I now notice the way that his dark chocolate hair contrasts against his flawless olive pallor? Or perhaps how his blue eyes twinkle amidst the sound of his own almost velvet voice as he and his friends throw sly, nonchalant insults from one side of the classroom to another?

The insults themselves are harmless, often stupid no doubt, but said purely for the sake of poking fun at something that some would struggle to see humour in.

I would have called myself one of those people, somebody keen on focussing on the important things and therefore tricky to amuse, only now I find myself laughing helplessly as his humorous sarcastic comments circle the classroom atmosphere.

Why do I feel that way about somebody of whom I've hardly ever talked to, who doesn't even know my name?

These things continue to disturb a sleep that never came.

--

Can't I just ignore them? Surely that should be easier than it's proving to be?

Somebody tell me, why do I feel a sudden urge to want to change the things that make feeling this way seem so alien, so stupid?

Of course it's because I want to forget that my emotions ever ruled over me as they do now, but is it because I wish for something to come out of it too?

--

Can't I just keep them locked away?

Why are these emotions suddenly impossible to ignore?

Mom suggests that putting thoughts in paper often clears the mind, but I've just written a letter listing these thoughts and feelings and my mind is not only still reeling with these incredulous notions, but a new temptation is introduced to my psych - one that I should never act on, but want to in order to defy what it is determined that I should do.

That would also, however, be defying my better mind - because what if he's not the person I think he is?

What if his far-away gaze and his distant sighs are purely a showcase of boredom, and not the longing or the depth of contemplation that I had built it to be?

--

These feelings are all-consuming, inescapable, and the defiance of my own right mind will only worsen matters if I stare at that piece of paper any longer.

--

It's on the next Monday morning that I find myself stuffing the letter through one of the gaps of his locker door, my stomach dropping as I realise the true brevity of my actions, actions of which are undoable, as there is no way I can retrieve that letter unscathed.

I can hope that the action will clear my mind, rid it of every hindrance that the thought of him promises, but I'm only left with the feeling that my words are no longer inescapable.