I can’t remember the last time I did something stupidly impulsive ( besides dying my hair 2 different colors at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday). Lately, it feels as if every word I say is carefully articulated and reiterated in my head multiple times before I actually speak. It feels like I’m not doing anything for myself. I don’t think I’m laughing for myself anymore? I don’t think that I’m breathing for myself anymore?
At this point, I’ve become what I think everyone else wants me to be.
I’ve never been like that in my life. And now, whoopty doo da, I’m a walking, talking mannequin. I’m clay in the midst of sculptors. But they aren’t molding me. I am. I’m stuck in a loop of positioning and repositioning and changing how I act and my body language and how I breathe. I’m stuck.
I’m Stuck.
Stuck in a whirlwind of teenagers, concrete, and anything/everything in between. They’re spinning, spinning, until they become dizzy. Then they wobble and topple over each, me in the middle of it all. And, as they lay on the floor, awaiting another round of Ring-Around-The-Rosie: High School Edition, they look almost miserable. They look like they actually miss the loop of haze mixed with weed smoke, lost eyesight, and late-night-depression drinking. They look as if they want to keep it going. Forever and ever. Never ending cycles of bs and hopelessness. And, like clockwork, they get back up and start it all again. And I watch as the weed turns to heroine and the 45 turns to Balkan. Now, they’re just a bumbling, babbling jumble of addicts. They fall and don’t get back up.
This place is a blur. A few days ago, I was me. I was who I wanted to be. Now, I’m a ghost of someone new. Someone not exactly here yet but you feel their presence. Someone not necessarily bad, but you have your suspicions. Someone you don’t know yet but you don’t want to change. That someone is not me. I want to be me. I want to be the me I’ve always been. The stupid, impulsive, curly haired me that I’ve, apparently, built my reputation around. I want to remain at my simplest form. But there’s nothing simple about growing up in Mississippi. There’s nothing simple about not wanting to be like them. There’s nothing simple about growing up and realizing that what’s in front of you is not something you want to be apart of.
But, when the haze is gone, and the whirling winds are asleep, and the last of us are quietly contemplating the silent release in the dead of night, only then am I to be who I truly was born to be. The jumbled mess of letters that seemingly make no sense.
WOW.