My collection of really short writings

Outside

Mother said to never go outside, inside is where everything can be free, where everything is mine to control. She was right. Outside here is cramped, it's shrouded in darkness and even the brightest of light could never light up this place. She said if you go outside when you return inside nothing will be the same. She told me the darkness of the outside will follow you inside and eat away at your soul. I didn't believe her, now I wish I did.

My teachers said going outside is how everyone should live, that outside is where I could flourish. They were wrong. Outside here is where everything I do is a mistake, it's a never-ending list of how I was wrong. I realized; my teachers were the outside. They lived in darkness for so long that the dark was their home. They were the temptation that brings children into the darkness and starts a never-ending cycle of misery. Foolish and naïve I believed their tales of freedom outside and took a step out the safety of inside.

Outside is unforgiving. It is filled with millions of voices yet not a single soul remains. The voices repeat the same thing every single day. "As soon as your eyes adjust to the dark, you shall have no use of the light." I am petrified. What will happen when I adjust to the light? Will I gain a voice that will tempt and curse other naïve children into the dark just like how my teachers had cursed me?

Outside is colder than the arctic. No number of coats and fire could provide my warmth like how the inside was, inside my mother's embrace or the tea that my father would brew for me in the mornings. Out here winter never ends, the blizzard only grows stronger each day. The cold slowly seeps into your bones and finally into your heart. The ache in my bones gets worse as my heart grows colder.

Outside is like a concentration camp in Auschwitz. When I arrive, a number is tattooed upon me and freedom is only a fantasy. Bound by invisible chains, ordered by invisible guards I work. You never see nor speak, you can only listen and work like a cog in a machine, like mindless drones searching for food for thee queen bee that is never seen.

People of the outside are like Cinderella's stepsisters. When they first went outside, they couldn't fit the glass slipper. Only Cinderella who was locked up in the attic could, however Cinderella doesn't exist. To fit the glass slipper, they cut of pieces of themselves to fit it. A toe here, or maybe break a few bones, take away the heel and fill the shoe with blood. Trapped by a shoe made of glass, they tread carefully, wishing to be married to a Prince. However, the Prince chooses no one. He doesn't want a shoe stained with blood, and he searches for a girl who doesn't exist to wear that horrible cursed glass slipper.

I fear being just like the people of the outside. Crippled by a cursed shoe, unable to see the light, working for a man I have never laid eyes on and with a heart made of ice, spilling sweet words to bring foolish young children like me into the dark. Mother had gone outside once but she managed to return with a heart of black. I am not strong like my mother. Just a few months outside and I can already see in the dark. Just a few months outside and I already can feel my heart turn into cold unforgiving ice.

I foolishly hoped that when I become a person of the outside the chains would be gone and light would return. As each day passes the chains only grow stronger. Just enough for met to run towards the inside and see a silver of light but not enough for me to step away. A truly cruel trick of the rulers of the outside, dangling a treat right in front of me but I could never truly reach out to grab it.

With each passing day I realized that no one rules the outside and yet everyone rules the outside. I made my own chains and yet I can't find the key to set myself free. Trapped by my own beliefs of the outside I bloomed a flower that was never meant to grow, and I still try the impossible to nurture it. I made the cursed shoe for a Cinderella that doesn't exist and cut of my toes just to fit it. Crippled by my own beliefs I branded myself with a number and striped myself of humanity to fit an idea that was shared by millions that no one agrees to.