Dear both malign and benign peers,
I feed off of introversion. Never in my life can I remember, even for the most fleeting of moments, wanting to be swarmed with attention. Yet, you seem to link it with my personality. Between tire eyes and hushed voices, I struggle to make myself smaller still.
I struggle to disappear.
I face the floor, my laugh lines present but unused. I cross my arms, subconsciously protecting my thoracic cavity from danger. Anxiety, pumping through my veins. Anxiety, leaving my veins through the masterpieces that bleed through broken skin. I keep my hair long and cover my face, just as I cover my scars. Just as I cover myself.
But that's not the point. That is merely what you see. you see shyness and fear. You see my lows. But you do not experience my highs. You will never know me, you will never feel my pain or my elation, you will never be me.
I guess, I mean to say less of what you see of me, and more of what I see inside of myself. Who I am, what I feel, what I truly would like to be, I cannot communicate it within the realm of tangibility.
I bathe in self-reassurance and opinionated individuality. I bask in the freedom of loneliness, and embrace independence. And I genuinely enjoy the loneliness. I welcome the darkness and the introversion. I allow it to walk inside of me. I greet it as an old friend.
I am extraordinarily content with lingering thoughts and problem-solving, though I dread group work. I love control, but respect that I will only ever control myself. Each time I open my mouth, I feel: my truths spilling from my stomach acid; my heart pouring onto your minds; my secrets spilling unfought into the hands of those who will betray them. And I assure myself that I am paranoid. Even still, I do not enjoy my spoken word.
I tread across the lonely nights. The reminiscent tone of the stars in the sky that guide me, my lone pitters of pale steps upon the pavement, I love it. I love the wounds upon my feet that remind me that I am alive, brutally so. I embrace the rich and the raw, the lows and the extremes. The burning sensations in my throat, that flow through my chest and into my hands, and drives me to create.
I welcome the known, and though I drastically fear the unknown, I explore carefully, hungry for knowledge. Curiosity drives me, and knowledge binds me. I love to gain knowledge, I have an inceasable will to acquire all of it that I humanly can. And as thoughts linger in my head, so do my aspirations. My ambitions, my feelings.
I think at a million miles per hour, energy buzzing through my mind, exciting my mania. I am constantly plagued by hysterics and a calm exterior. I keep to myself, but that does not mean I am boring. I do not speak often, but that does not make me quiet. I am loud. I am large. I am interesting and attention-grabbing and impossible to ignore.
I am extraordinary. And I choose to keep it inside of myself. Because I could never truly explain anything that I feel. I could never truly explain myself to you, any of you. I know you would not understand. I can find solace in only myself. I can trust in the truth of only myself. I can depend on only my mind.
And god, do I love being alone.
ns 15.158.61.45da2
