I am barely stable, I am afraid to be alone
Flip on a switch and the sun comes up, the new day starts, you begin again. Take the inconsistencies off the wall and wrap them about your shoulders, a not-warm-enough sheet to pull you through until you have the time to sit down and just lose it all. You don't, not yet, not now--there's a lot to do first, so many people to pacify, and it's not like it matters, it's not like they even really know your name, but you do it anyway. Instinct, maybe. Some latent drive to succeed, despite your mad dip-and-dive failure to feel remotely ambitious on any but your most manic of weeks. You don't actually care, not really, but some deep dark part of you knows that if you don't force yourself now, you will never. And you don't particularly relish the sensation of "never" on your tongue, cold and metallic, flat soda and three-day-old sandwich, the blood from the cut the winter keeps jolting open on the edge of your lip. If you swallow never today, you'll be tasting it for the rest of your life, and that's just enough to make you press your tongue hard against it, maneuvering it away from the back of your throat.
You are not strong, but nor are you weak; not smart, but not inherently foolish either. A child, for certain, but you find you can square away with that. There is nothing wrong with children. They are vast, glowing potential, and you find yourself appreciating the notion. Potential is a squirmy term, one that slips and jerks from your grasp no matter how many times your fist closes around it. You want to have more potential than you do, you crave it, but you don't quite know how to filter more of it into your coffee in the morning. No one ever told you, you were never taught. There are so many things you feel should be in the rulebook, marked with colored pens, circled eight, ten, twelve times so you could never miss them. Someday, you fib to yourself blindly on bad days, someday you will write that rulebook. The rulebook. You will take every truth and place them all reverently between the pages of a self-constructed road map to serenity, and they will all gather around to thank you. They will smile, lift you onto their shoulders, and you will at last feel grown. You may not have the ambition, the motivation, or the talent, but you have the need, and maybe that's the thing that matters most of all.
You dare not ask questions. You dare not tell lies. You dare not open your mouth at all, because the waterfall rush of bile and integrity that threatens to douse the land is too fast, too bold, too vibrant for you to anything about once it has begun. You know. You know yourself, and you know them, and they don't ever quite believe you when you can't resist saying so--you see it in their eyes, flashing cold and bronzed. They do not like your eagerness. They do not respect your wisdom. They do not cherish your naivete. If you're to be utterly sincere, neither do you, but there isn't anything you can really do about it at this point. You aren't exactly an old dog, but new tricks seem too heady, too sharp around the edges, and they burn you each and every time you reach for one. You're finding yourself more and more conditioned against change, against anything that can't be construed as knowledge of a helpful variety. You duck harm and dodge weaponry, and when they ask you for your input, you turn away. You aren't exactly old, but nor are you new, and you're not sure what to do with the place you occupy. You only know that there is something here for you, or you wouldn't be here in the first place. You do not talk about it. You do not try. You sit back, hands in the pockets of a coat two sizes too large, and you wait for the moment it will become worth it.
Sometimes, you hate them all. Sometimes, you love them more than you would be comfortable saying. Sometimes, you wish for absolution in a way none and all of them could grant, if they only knew, if they could only tear themselves away from their own matters for a few minutes. Sometimes, you wish you didn't care in the slightest. Sometimes, you think that very sense of interest is the very thing tying you to humanity entirely. Sometimes, you actually manage to convince yourself that you are the only person in all the world, and sometimes, those are the days you feel most like coming apart. You're learning, sometimes, but sometimes learning drags on for a lifetime.
You are not strong, but nor are you weak; not smart, but not inherently foolish either. A child, for certain, but you find you can square away with that. There is nothing wrong with children. They are vast, glowing potential, and you find yourself appreciating the notion. Potential is a squirmy term, one that slips and jerks from your grasp no matter how many times your fist closes around it. You want to have more potential than you do, you crave it, but you don't quite know how to filter more of it into your coffee in the morning. No one ever told you, you were never taught. There are so many things you feel should be in the rulebook, marked with colored pens, circled eight, ten, twelve times so you could never miss them. Someday, you fib to yourself blindly on bad days, someday you will write that rulebook. The rulebook. You will take every truth and place them all reverently between the pages of a self-constructed road map to serenity, and they will all gather around to thank you. They will smile, lift you onto their shoulders, and you will at last feel grown. You may not have the ambition, the motivation, or the talent, but you have the need, and maybe that's the thing that matters most of all.
You dare not ask questions. You dare not tell lies. You dare not open your mouth at all, because the waterfall rush of bile and integrity that threatens to douse the land is too fast, too bold, too vibrant for you to anything about once it has begun. You know. You know yourself, and you know them, and they don't ever quite believe you when you can't resist saying so--you see it in their eyes, flashing cold and bronzed. They do not like your eagerness. They do not respect your wisdom. They do not cherish your naivete. If you're to be utterly sincere, neither do you, but there isn't anything you can really do about it at this point. You aren't exactly an old dog, but new tricks seem too heady, too sharp around the edges, and they burn you each and every time you reach for one. You're finding yourself more and more conditioned against change, against anything that can't be construed as knowledge of a helpful variety. You duck harm and dodge weaponry, and when they ask you for your input, you turn away. You aren't exactly old, but nor are you new, and you're not sure what to do with the place you occupy. You only know that there is something here for you, or you wouldn't be here in the first place. You do not talk about it. You do not try. You sit back, hands in the pockets of a coat two sizes too large, and you wait for the moment it will become worth it.
Sometimes, you hate them all. Sometimes, you love them more than you would be comfortable saying. Sometimes, you wish for absolution in a way none and all of them could grant, if they only knew, if they could only tear themselves away from their own matters for a few minutes. Sometimes, you wish you didn't care in the slightest. Sometimes, you think that very sense of interest is the very thing tying you to humanity entirely. Sometimes, you actually manage to convince yourself that you are the only person in all the world, and sometimes, those are the days you feel most like coming apart. You're learning, sometimes, but sometimes learning drags on for a lifetime.