She came back
She came back today, smiling like the goddess I long to be. Cheerful, and happy, like a living ray of sunshine. I heard her voice before the song from my dreams completely cleared my mind.
She spoke of her lands. Far off, so far away I cannot see them from mine. Prospering, thriving, full of golden grains and happy people. The sun shines on her lands in ways they have neglected mine.
She was telling of a story, one of all the things she's learned since she left the riverside camp and set out on her own. Our leaders were listening, smiling upon her like the sun.
We were called to breakfast, like days of old, when waking meant family, and mornings did not bring pain.
I had not slept. Not for many days, and had not slept easy that night. I did not want food, nor coffee, nor to hear the science behind why I could not cure insomnia with Netflix.
I asked her to stop. To understand that I was tired and did not yet have the patience to hear why I was wrong.
She laughed, chimes in the wind, and the sun came through the window to smile at her for the sound.
I begged for mercy. I was tired. I don't think I'd ever felt so tired. I just wanted to close my eyes, just for an hour. But she was home, so it was to be a celebration.
I screamed, cried, and begged to be left alone, only to be met with scorn and derision. Compared to the golden goddess which has invaded my home, told me everything I've done wrong, while manicuring her already perfect nail.
I hate her. I hate her as much as the winter frost hates the warm spring sun. I hate her as the flowers hate the third day of a spring rainstorm.
That is to say, I do not hate her. I cannot hate her, for she is the only one I truly love. Because she is everything I am not.
She is a calm, assured smile, despite a hectic schedule. She is trusting, where I only feel scorn and a paranoia not befitting my life. She is success where I have only proven failure; in academia, sports, companionship.
She came back today, and showed me all the ways I was wrong. She showed me all the ways i have failed; myself, my school, my family.
She acts as if I do not already know; that my university asked me to leave because I was ill equipped to pass my classes. That my most stable relationship was abuse that I tolerated because I feared being alone, and my longest one was a test of wills, to see who would bend to manipulations and silent, subtle powerplays that leaned toward abuse the way a sunflower leans to the sun. She acts as if I don't know that the only thing I will succeed in is death, but am too rooted here to be there for a while yet.
I hate her, the way a caged animal fears its freedom as much as they fear the cage. I hate her, the way a child hates the dark, full of fear and the unknown. That is to say, I don't hate her, I fear, not her, but what she represents.
She is success. In school, she excels as a biology chemistry double major. Her boyfriend is kind, and has only proven to give into toxic jealousy once, and it was sorted. Her room is clean, orderly. She eats healthy, and works out, she has friends, and goes to parties.
I am failure. Dropping out of school because I want doing well. My partner has not yet found me, nor I them. My room is scattered with clothes, pillows, and one plate with a sandwich I made but did not eat, resting on a table. I eat whatever I can hide away in a box in my room, because the appeal of soup is small when the only thing to keep my attention for more than five minutes has been writing this post. My idea of a workout is jumping in and out of bed to open or close my window to drop my room to cooler temperatures. My friends are only the Avengers, because fictional characters don't care that even though I'm too tired to leave my room, I can't sleep.
My sister came home this weekend, and all she did was make me cry. Because she is everything I will never be. She is everything i cannot be
