Thoughts on Beryl
My head canon of Beryl has changed a lot over the past couple of years. In part, due to conversations with others who are, maybe, worse than me about challenging the status quo (Rae, you might not do tumblr as much any more, but I’m looking at you).
Now, I do not always portray her sympathetically. In “Into the Dark,” she’s a horrible bitch-but that’s because, in part, we only see her through one particular lens. And she has completely gone around the bend multiple times by that point!
My head canon of Beryl is that she did not start off that much different than me, which is what makes her terrifying. Could I, with the right pressures and opportunities, follow Beryl’s path? Could you?
I have looked into the darkness of my own soul, and I believe that, yes, I could. If there were the opportunities to take the right baby steps.
You see, Beryl is someone who, at her very heart, just wants to be loved and accepted. She wants nothing more than to know that she belongs. She wants someone to look into her eyes and tell her, honestly, that she is loved and treasured.
Beryl is the girl who stood to the side when all her friends were being grabbed up by the boys in high school. The girl who witnessed all the drama, who listened to all her friends bitch, and wished, just once, that someone would notice her, would think she was pretty, would want to kiss her, would sneak off with her during happy half so that she’d have to wear turtlenecks to class the next day even if it was 80 degrees outside.
Beryl is the girl who cried herself to sleep wondering why no one can ever see her as more than a friend.
Beryl is the girl who gets the pity dances at prom and has to slip off to the bathroom to cry by herself more than once, then fix her make up and come back out and pretend like she’s having a good time.
Beryl’s the girl who stands in the circle, feeling completely invisible, who contributes and then feels like everyone just stares at her wondering why the hell she bothered to open her mouth.
Beryl’s the girl who claims she doesn’t want to get married, because the truth of the matter is it hurts less if she pretends that it’s what she wants.
Beryl’s the girl who will melt for anyone who makes her feel wanted, even if she’s not attracted to that person, just because she can count on one hand the times she’s felt wanted in “that way.”
Beryl’s the girl who sometimes explodes when her friends bitch about having been single for a month or a dry spell, when the fact of the matter is she’s dying to have an intimate relationship and thinks she’d kill just for a one-night stand because then, at least for half a second, she could pretend that she’s not utterly repulsive.
And then Chaos came along. When she was hurting because that one person who had shown her some extra niceness, whom she had allowed herself to believed liked her, forgot that she existed at all.
And Chaos said, “Come here, dear. It’s ok. I know, it hurts, but you are beautiful and amazing. You deserve to be loved, and I can help you. I want to help you. I want to take your pain away. I want you to feel how loved and special and wanted you are, to feel what you’ve always wanted.”
And broken once again, devastated, scared that she’ll die alone, that no one will miss her, that no one would come to her funeral, that the world would not even remember that she had ever been, she crawled into those open arms and sobbed while being held and having her hair stroked and told that it would all be ok.
By the time the tears dried and she could once again see without her vision being blurry, it was too late.
The source for the image can be found http://500px.com/photo/3631190?from=popular