Vulnerable
Location
Vulnerable, as if everything I am is stretched out on a wire.
Stubborn (at least that's how I see myself) up to a point,
waiting for a chance to turn away, to erase what I see in the mirror.
Because what I see in the mirror is not myself. At least, that's what they say.
They say I'm beautiful and pretty and cute, but all I see is the tears that roll down my face
counting markers where teenage memories left scars upon my heart,
where I can't erase them. I want to erase them, I do.
But what I see as myself is not myself, or who I knew myself to be.
It's hard for me to see myself other than who I plaster myself as upon my phone, pictures and
statuses and dreams that I might never accomplish because I was so afraid of showing the real me
I made up lies to cover up who I really am.
"Strong," they call me. "Wonderful."
I've forgotten my own name. I don't feel wonderful or strong; I feel lost in a land I have been
rejected in; beaten- down.
We take comfort in forgetting ourselves: food fills that empty void inside of us, or so we tell
ourselves; makeup covers the scars we try so desperately to hide from those we want to love us;
and smiles, to make us forget why we ever started crying.
No. No, I don't feel strong. I feel weak, stretched out on that wire I'm trying so desperately to keep
stable, hanging in the streets, waiting to drop down below, into the intersections.
I may be stubborn, but it's only because I'm hanging on as I hear the cars below.
I've forgotten why I'm hanging on when I've forgotten my name and how I look like.
As I hang there, I hear the names they call me.
"Beautiful," "Sweet," "Intelligent."
But then come the cries of "Shallow" and "Weak" and "Weird."
I tried to filter them, but I felt unwanted without the mask I had made for myself with words
typed upon screens, screens that hid who I really am.
I'm only trying to hang on, can't you see that?
I'm barely haning on. I can't feel my fingers anymore, trying desperately to keep up with the words
you call me.
As I start to fall, the only name I will remember will be the last one you called me.
I remember the picture, I remember what you typed.
If only you had known we were all hanging on by that wire, all waiting to drop.
The way I fly, straight down, is not where you wanted me to go.
But it's where you sent me.
"Unwanted," you said.
And so I fell, and I could hear every car horn blare past as the heartbeat in my ears echoed.
I just wanted to be wanted.