I AM.

When someone tells you that you’re speaking with privilege they’re not telling you that you’re completely clueless, ignorant and unaware. It’s not an insult, or a comment on your morality.

There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.

Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.

You sometimes think you want to disappear, but all you really want is to be found.

One day, if I reach one day, I’ll tell people what life was like back then, and they’ll ask why on earth I didn’t tell anyone. And I won’t have an answer for them. I don’t have one now. I have no reasons for these secrets. No one cares… No one looks at me hard enough… But really, I think I’ve just forgotten how to care. I don’t even know if I want rescuing anymore. And making excuses is exhausting.

I think maybe we follow destructive paths to see if anyone will try to stop us. We aim to destroy ourselves to see who will care. It’s one final cry for help before the world caves in.

But honestly, I am just tired. I wake up every morning exhausted, staring at the ceiling, searching for a reason to get up. And there isn’t one. I just lie there. I want to hide my face into the pillow and disappear, sometimes. It’d be better than this routine I do - the one where I pretend to live some sort of life.

Who hurt you

you just don’t get it, do you. I am empty, and you cannot fill me with kind words. with your understanding. with hollow promises of a better tomorrow. I am empty because this town is draining me. I am empty because people are fake, and their smiles are fake, and their concern is fake, and it all comes together: my life; as fragile as tissue paper, and the seams are tearing. realisation - like a knife. suddenly, I see everything: I stay here, and I sit in silence because I cannot face the world again. you’re told it’s made of solid gold; but one layer deep, there is rust, rust, rust…

And before you know it, life has changed. It has become a blur - of late nights spent alone in unmade beds. Of hands trembling, lips shaking, avoiding people’s eyes and questions. It shows in the dark bags beneath your eyes and the way your nails crack a little easier than they used to - but you’re fine, you tell yourself. Nothing is wrong so how can anything be wrong? You’re fine. You’re fine…

Whoever you are, however you got here, this is exactly where you are supposed to be.