log: BOREDOM.
word count: 732
Boredom is a privilege.
I stand in front of my vanity, the scent of whatever chemicals had been imbued in my eyeshadow palette wafting between me and its casing. The glitter sparkles idly as the figure in the mirror stares back at me. Those eyes that had looked at others with love had none to spare for me.
My pillows rest against the plush headboard of my bed, the covers calling me to lie down and scroll away on my little phone– detach myself from the world, let the time rot away in unproductiveness. You’re not chasing anything, anyways.
Boredom is a privilege. Loneliness is a curse.
Photos of friends fill my homepage, evenings spent together in karaoke bars and restaurants after spending afternoons saving civilians from Wanderers. Their smiles are genuine, bright, as if they haven’t risked their lives together, almost died together mere hours ago. The air is light, you can sense it through the screen. The camaraderie is visible, the bond is strong.
Loneliness is a curse. Dying alone must be miserable.
I try. To talk, to socialize, to make myself available, to change myself. But no matter what I do, the effort is never enough. Is there something about me that’s wrong? Something missing that makes everyone skip past?
Or maybe it’s me. Just me, that's so unremarkable. It’s in human nature to seek thrill, to be attracted to something shinier than even gemstones. Like crows. How funny.
That reminds me…
0 new messages.. Have I reached a new level of low? Pathetic? Refreshing doesn’t work. All of the last messages are from me. All read. From a few hours ago. Or maybe even days. Who knows?
Dying alone is miserable. Living alone is a nightmare.
Living alone, not in terms of living by oneself in an apartment surrounded by velvet plush and greenery by the windowsill. Living alone in terms of watching the world pass you by because perhaps, by some cruel joke of this godforsaken universe, the world had forgotten about you.
Nothing was ever about you. Even in your own tale, you’ve been relegated as background noise. Look on the bright side, the foreground won’t pop if there’s nothing to blur at the back, no?
At least, even if you’re blurred, you still have a purpose.
But when will the time come for me to shine, too? I’ve been at the back for so long, I’ve lost all of my luster. And if I do take center stage, would people still look at me?
Like I matter? Or maybe they’d look at me as a filler. Someone, sure, but not someone.
Living alone is a nightmare. Being forgotten is terrifying.
Because it means that I no longer matter. I’ve left no legacy for people to think of me by. Despite everything I’ve done, I’m just a blank canvas. Whatever color of death I’ll have will be the only pigment on white I’ll leave in this world. When that time does come.
I’ve long been comfortable with being alone, with being by myself. But never loneliness. Never the feeling of facing the world on your own, and you have no help. Not from family, they’re all gone. Not from friends, they’re all busy.
The loneliness turns into numbness, and you start to fear affection. You start to fear love. Because you already know the feeling of being forgotten, and everything that isn’t nothing is fleeting. Self-love could only go so much. You start to feel selfish, and it becomes the dominant thought.
“I want to be loved too!” “I want to be looked at like I matter!” “I want to be someone’s someone!” “I want to be the muse for once!”
You plead, and it feels self-centered. So you reject. You deny yourself happiness because it no longer feels genuine. It becomes pity. For you, at least, the love offered to you is pity. You have reached a new level of pathetic.
And before you know it, you’ve dug yourself a hole you can’t climb out of. Because the hole is comfort. And loneliness is comfort. And loneliness is a curse.
Or maybe, you’re just bored.
So you continue to scroll through your phone, and you sleep through the loneliness. Because if death doesn’t provide you with sweet escapism, perhaps slumber can lighten the ache in your chest.
Maybe, you can dream that you matter too.