starving, heavy

April, 2025

In the convoluted mess that is a Sunday evening mind, I reach for the pen as it reaches for me, and I suppose that’s precisely what I’ve been looking for. It’s difficult to explain. I’ve been hungry for something more, something cathartic with an ethereal hint to it. I’ll settle for something as subtle as my grip on the pen. There’s so much to be said, and you know me, no feeling that inhabits me ever goes unaddressed. It’s a taunting game, getting to know someone. You must also give. I must also make myself known. It’s in these times that it becomes clear to me that I am tainted. It is a difficult task to shine a light on myself amongst so many shadows. I’m a difficult person. People tend to give me a break because the only person I tend to harm is myself, but that’s only true to a point. You can only get so close without becoming tainted yourself. I see the worst in everything. It’s an awful flaw. I see potential, and I taint it, recklessly. I see better in the dark, so I cast shadows on everything in sight. I remake everything in my tainted image. It’s tiring, but I’m restless.

A friend tells me I’m not tainted, I am no shadow — I am a light that does not believe in light. She says I only feel the need to punish good things because I don’t believe I deserve them. And she’s right, I see myself through a darkened lens, and I see a self that doesn’t get to have good things. Because if I stop fighting the shadows I create in my mind, if I allow myself to see the light, dare to chase it, I risk finding out that it’s all dark out there. And I’ve chased the light, I’ve seen how I look in it, and to be honest, to anyone else it might seem like I glitter and glisten, but in my eyes, I am weak beneath it. I’ve come to realize that more than anything, I am always terrified of looking weak. I’m nothing without the fight. Every time I’ve left it behind, I’ve discovered and rediscovered that the fight’s all I’ve got.

Now that’s a great writer’s tale, but here comes what will always keep me from being a great writer. When the time comes to choose between being a writer and being human, I will always choose to be human. Hell, I don’t want to live like this. Coloring everything with the colors I hate most, listening to someone speak, only to hear my worst fears echoing around the room with the sound of their voice. I don’t want to live like a shadow, though it is easier. It’s always been a great comfort to me to resort to what I know best. But it’s no life. I don’t want to spend my days in dark corners of empty rooms. But how do I keep from it? I can keep a steel grip on blood and guts, but I can’t for the life of me delicately cradle something good. As odd as it will seem to say this, it stems from the same reason I don’t like automatic cars: I can’t seem to take my damn foot off the brakes.

I believe the first step towards gentleness might be to stop punishing myself for, well, being myself. I am what I am, take it or leave it. If there is one thing I refuse to entertain, it’s making myself in the image of what someone else wants from me. So this is it. No hiding, no overly critical self-reflection. I am who I am, and that is perhaps my best quality. I’m done covering it up, whether it be in fine garments or in rags. I am scared to be as much as I am. I must be it, nonetheless. I realize I will be rigid. I will quiver at the sight of anything gentle. But I will bear with it. I started this off by speaking of a hunger, a hunger for something more. And it’s perhaps because I am keeping myself from being more.