#litdump;

But this morning I almost cried over my hot chocolate and this afternoon I laughed too much about something too silly and a few hours ago I was surprised when someone remembered that I was born nearly two decades ago. I smile too much, and laugh too much, for someone who's incessantly thinking about how unfortunate everyone is to have known me (even that, I laugh at). Today I was too worried, I was too happy, but underneath all that is a ball of anxiety, and issues I can’t address because I don’t know where to start. I guess I just want that inherent adult wisdom to know where I can start, because I know I need to.

Instead here I am at 2 in the morning, writing something I probably won’t even remember five hours later when I do need to wake up, and the funny thing is that I don’t even feel any different. Sadder, maybe. But this is just another day among an infinite number of days that I can live out and I’m wasting it again and the irony doesn’t escape me.

So I’m going to try and organise my own muddled thoughts because, really, my brain doesn’t know when to shut up. The silence I can never obtain is that from my own mind. I think too much, and still I know it’s too little, and so I think some more, until I start chipping away at the defences that have resulted in scrapes and wounds and blood caked underneath my fingernails.

I’ve accepted that I will never, ever stop thinking.

Someone I know (and you know who you are, whether you read this or not), says that it’s a curse to have a mind that runs as regularly as their mouth. I think that’s the same with having a mouth that refuses to form words properly with a mind that runs at entirely the same rate. I’ve been going insane since however long my memory goes back to, and this is probably why.

There have always been people who have spoken on my behalf. They’re also those who have told me: it’s not a speech impediment, you can correct it if you try hard enough. They’re also the ones who’ve been telling me to shut up ever since I learnt how to ask questions, who tell me to stop thinking too much. So I've learnt to shut up and internalise and fall back on logic and dark, if not pitiful, humour.

My mouth cannot keep up with my thoughts, and my own brain keeps burning away at my skull every night, over and over and over again, until there’s no energy left to think, and even when I wake up it continues. It keeps running and I’m too out of breath.

So I’m sorry if I say “I” excessively because I’m really all I can think about and I hate it.

I want to think about other people. I want to stare off into the distance and wonder what they’re doing without me and not feel bitter about not being there with them. I want to zone out because I’m thinking about them smiling, and not frown because I’m not the reason for it.

I hate myself because I think about myself too much that I’ve pretty much gotten to the point where “caring for people” only means something if I get a reward for it. I hate myself for hating myself for hating all these things about myself and it’s only about me and I hate it because I want to be able to open the gate for people and not stay confined in this little corner in my head surrounded by all these walls I can’t take down because I’m so, so afraid of what’ll happen if everyone sees how empty the space is behind them. My eyes are windows that are too open to a soul that’s too small to see; there is a certain hollowness in my laugh, filled with sarcastic laughter at everything that’s ironic or stupid or silly.

The fact that this is all centred around me makes me feel terrible, and I don’t even think that I should feel that way.

I’ve been told that “your feelings aren’t important” and “stop thinking about yourself, and live life pleasing other people” that I don’t think I can ever stop thinking about these things at all. And I want to. I’m terrible and I’m stupid and right know all I hear in my head are my parents asking “where did we go wrong with you?”, “why can’t you ever care?” and “is it so hard for you to show the slightest bit of interest in anything?”. And I’ve always wanted to say that it’s not their fault, and I do care, and that whenever I show interest it’ll probably be while they’re not watching and assessing everything I do. Life is a test that I’ve never studied for and I’ll never finish. I know that. But I need a little break every now and again because, unlike popular belief, I’m not a robot.

I hate thinking at 2 am.

Already my brain is legitimising everything I’ve done, everything I wrote, because my brain is telling me that I hate myself and I’m okay with it and if I haven’t started now I probably won’t start any time soon. Already I’m thinking about tomorrow, next week, the months that follow – heck, even ten years down the road. Already I’m thinking about that letter I wrote that the person I wrote for will probably never read (maybe I’ll write it out properly later).

Already I know that I’ve just entered this fabled adulthood the same way I exited dimly-lit teenage years, and that the future is just as dark, if not more so.