I Know
I know… I know what it is like to not be able to breathe. I know what it is like to wish you were not breathing. I know what it is like to smile and laugh. I know what it is like to be told you will never amount to anything, to be told you aren’t worth anything, to be told you are worth everything, to feel shunned, shut out, yelled out, listened to silence, praying for silence. I know. I know what it like to sit somewhere and not be able to move. To cry because you know that it is stupid but you still do it anyway. I know what it feels like to cry. I know what it feels like to love. I know it hurts, painful and like a fire in your veins. I know the butterflies in your stomach and the tears down your cheeks. I know. I feel… I feel the disappointment and the sadness. I feel the anger and grief. I feel your emotions as well as my own and it is okay and it is not okay. I feel scared, terrified and nervous. I feel contentment, excitement and maybe even happiness. I feel life and I don’t. I feel the heat of sitting in your car not being able to waste the gas for air conditioning but not being about to go outside or open a window. I feel the cold of rain when you stand by that door not wanting to go inside just yet. I feel the space between us and what used to be there. It hurts to be alone and it hurts not to be alone. I cry for the sad, ridiculous, happy and the morbidity of life. I smile over the same things. I want to live and I want to die. I feel it all and I know what I know and I have no idea why. I want to breathe. I want to be happy. I want to live. But days seem harder and oxygen seems thinner. I am unaware of where I am even though I know I am here. Does this make sense? To those who feel it, those who experience it, it does. I don’t want it to make sense to me. I want it to be oblivious. I want to fight for life and for every one struggling with existence… but I also just want to live. I want to be able to say that I did things without fear. I want to have courage and bravery. I want to be a hero, a doctor, a changer-of-worlds. But I also just want to have ideas. I don’t want to be this constant contradiction. I don’t want to be this beholder of emotion and feeling. I don’t want to be…smart? Is smart the right word? Could I say sick instead? I am… I am looked down on with sadness and confusion. My excitement is seen as oddness and I am no longer normal. The stories I tell are ramblings and I don’t think straight. I might need help…but I don’t. I know who I am, at least what my name is. I know that I get excited over the things no one would understand. When I get up and go somewhere I am excited. When I can walk into a store by myself I am thrilled. The looks I get from smiling that I was able to not panic by the thought of other people and their judgments brings me back to reality. I am not normal. I am not considered smart or sick but I can be. For the socially awkward and peculiar people, for the depressed, anxious, panic-ridden, sad and weird people I am with you. I stand with you. I may be only one and it may not matter right now or ever but here I am. I am the girl who is constantly looking around. I am the one crying in my car. I am the one standing wondering where I should go. I am the one existing, trying, and hoping for more. I am the one who got out of bed. I am the one smiling in a store. I am me.
