Brittle

We go through life alone, whether we like it or not. Friends, family, relationships, none of it is real because no one truly knows one another. We all have various versions of ourselves that we display to society, friends, and family. When our versions become compromised, we are forced to retreat into ourselves—shifting and shaping into someone who, we ourselves, might not even recognize.

When we are left alone and isolated, we become our own company. What if we couldn’t stand even being in our own skin? Our fragile egos molding and shifting beyond our own likability. That process is dangerous and terrifying; becoming someone who we don’t recognize anymore when our reflection stares back. We know who we would like to be. We know who we would ideally love to become. Why is it that we can’t? Fear. A fear of rejection, fear of disappointment, and fear of our true selves.

Push past the fear, past the guilt, past the anger, and we are left with nothing but ourselves. In the end, all we have is ourselves. When we die, we die cold and alone. If you don’t like yourself, you will never be happy. I've already come to terms with my sad reality. I know that I will never accept myself, I will never love myself, and I will never truly be happy.

“But you have so much to live for.” “But you’re so young, you’ll figure everything out.” These are common rebuttals that mean nothing to me. Step into someone else’s mind and you’ll find that these same popular phrases people use are just sentences that they use because they don’t know how to comfort. Animals know comfort. When humans cry, animals are often the first to interact. Humans do not deserve animals. Their compassion, their ability to sympathize and to understand, is something that humans have decided that they are above.

Masculinity is now fragile and can’t be tampered with. Holding another man’s hand in public is a risk almost anywhere you go. Being gay is seen as a choice and a sin, so we are constantly battling our own will to live. The realization that you cannot be happy because being with the person you want to be with is seen as a sin to others is maddening. You feel uncomfortable in your own skin, you feel like an abomination who’s only purpose is to bring disappointment. You start by disappointing your family, then your friends, and then finally yourself. You become the worst version of yourself.

Your mind turns against you, and the very cells in your veins turn against you, poisoning the very body they inhabit. On a molecular level, your body turns against you, fighting you every waking minute. What can you do? There is nothing to do but sleep. Sleep deep. Feel everything in yourself shut down. Coming to grips with your body and mind turning against itself—a collapse from within. Such destruction is unseen and unknown to all but who are close. Or if you’re like me, you’re smart. You trust no one, you push everyone out of your life, and isolate yourself. Because that’s the only thing you can do.

Isolation is safely. You know that you’re used to your own company and you know that you won’t damage yourself in the way that others can. Hangout with an individual who doesn’t know what to do/what you’re going through and it’s the quickest way to find yourself even more at risk. You feel the energy from your bones drain. You feel yourself become even more hollow. You’re an empty shell now, with nothing left to lose, nothing to gain, and most importantly, nothing to feel. Apathy is your only companion and it is a safe one.

Care about nothing and you can’t be disappointed. Love nothing, and no one, and you become invincible. Pour out your feelings on pages, let your emotions soak into the words, feel yourself getting lost in the lines and the spaces. That’s the only way you can deal with your apathy. Soon you find yourself not writing because you enjoy it or you want to create, but you only write to escape. Writing is a pavement for your mind to escape when reality becomes just too unbearable. With one snap of your finger, you've teleported to a different world.

Feelings become obsolete, feelings become nothing, and nothing becomes death. A walking void you become. With every step you take, a step further into darkness. Sex is salvation. Two bodies becoming one, you being nothing, are able to pull them into you. That’s the craving that I feel. The ability to pull a man in, with a song, with a dance, with a hum. I feel the siren within me awaken. I feel it scratching and clawing its way out. Shouting and screaming within my mind. Being isolated, the next person to come for me may not be the one that I want. But if he is, I will take him deep into me. A dangerous game, but I have nothing to lose; I’ve already lost myself to the beast within.

Becoming hollow, becoming brittle, so much so that one push would be all that it would take to send me off, to tip me over and have everything that I am shatter. In the destruction, in the broken pieces, something has to rise. I know that something will not be me. I am not strong. I am weak, so when I break, whatever arises will be something… better… different… darker? So I distract myself with songs and dance, perfecting my seduction technique in order to gain a tactical advantage. Hoping that someone will check up on me, to take me away. To go to a club, a bar, or anywhere but where my mind has made its home.

My mind is dark. My mind is chaos. My mind kills me. Turning the energy around me to black. Everything gets heavy. Everything turns black. Now I crave release. The beast within demands to be set free, but at what cost?

Is feeling a bad thing? I no longer know how to express myself properly—to feel the “proper emotional responses.” I don’t know how to be myself because I’m so worried that people hate me. Instead, I chose to feel nothing, I chose to lose myself. Perhaps I’m fulfilling a self-sabotaging prophecy, but I have no choice. Changing and shifting every day into someone else is the only way that I can survive.

Living through dreams, trying to fix someone so broken. You can only change moving forward or distract yourself to feel less alone...

Fighting each day to keep your head up above the water. That's what makes each day count. Even if it's something as simple as brushing your teeth. Anything to help you feel more normal. That's the battle I live in everyday.