I do not want to be the main character of my own story
I do not want to be the so called hero, I don't like it when I am looked to first, when I am the one people glance to for an answer the moment a question leaves someone's lips, all eyes on me as if I am an angel descended from the heavens to be stared at with awe
Awe in their eyes, awe, hope, this pleading look for guidance and yet I cannot guide myself to the things I want most, I cannot guide my pen to the page I cannot guide my hand onto his I cannot guide myself from this room to the next without feeling the pain in my legs grow with every step I take. I know that I must step, for I have no other choice, why else would they have wasted all that time teaching me how to walk if not for me to take steps of my own and yet I find myself glued to the floor, my shoes stuck down in tar like Cinderella and yet I am no princess, I am nobody's princess.
A small part of me desperately wants to be, to be someone's princess, to be saved from a tower by a knight in shining armor but I stuff it down, I bury her in my closet like the skeleton she is; thin, fragile, weak. So easily broken, so easily bent, so I hide her deep deep down in the castle dungeons that makes up my past and I tell myself to let her rot but she is already rotten there is no meat on her bones to be picked away by vultures. She is rotten because she no longer exists and she is rotten to me, I find her rotten I do not like the taste of her name on my tongue as it was once my own.
I do not want to be the main character of my own story because I once was and years upon years later I find myself realizing that Achilles was right, no hero has a happy ending. The story cuts of at the best moment of their lives, it pans to them staring into the sunset, surrounded by loved ones with a smile on their face but the sun is too bright on their skin for the scars to be seen. They link arms with their friends, hold their family close to them, kiss their lover with all the passion of an musician and the gentle touch of a sculptor before the screen fades to black and the viewers are left with a smile, thinking, knowing, that it was a happy ending but it wasn't. The show never goes on long enough to let the sun set and the scars be shown again, to see the blood flow start up once more. The arms unlink from one another as the friends realize the monster that stands before them, their family retracts as the warm skin they felt turns to fur before them and their lover watches in horror as the lips that they once kissed now bare fangs and snarl at them. The sun is down, the story is "over" and yet the hero now stands before everyone they hold dear as they realize they have lived long enough to become the villain, they are now the monster in another person's story, they are now the dragon to be slain.
And should those they love try to adjust, try to learn how to care for dragons no amount of healing potions will cure the burns they collect when I breath fire upon them. No amount of gold can replace the furniture I crush as I try to fit myself inside a house not built for me, no amount of flights on my back into the sky will make up for the time someone slips and I am too slow to save them, like Icarus they fall and like Daedalus I can only watch on in horror as I realize it was my own creations, my own ideas that lead to their death. They may blame it on their want to fly but deep down I will always know it was my giving them wings that is to blame.
I do not want to be the main character in my own story because I am already wearing so much armor, armor that will not come off after years of use it is rusted onto my body and I cannot find the strength to take it off. The sword I once used to vanquish foes and the shield I once used to protect the kingdom now beaten and battered, the pommel cracked, the leather ripped, and the steel bent out of shape: irreparable.
My helmet no longer covers a mind that dreams of a better life, my chest plate no longer protects a strong and noble heart, my greaves no longer cover legs that carry me across the kingdom. I am rusted, I lay in a field where I once fought battles and let the earth overtake me, the plants using my hollowed out armor as a new home and yet I still sit inside it. In the field where children play, where families have picnics and lovers kiss for the first time I sit, rusted and overgrown, unable to shake the image of the bodies that once lay in that field soaking in their own blood.
I do not want to be the main character in my own story because no matter if I am the princess, the dragon, or the knight I do not get a happy ending. No matter if I am rescued, if I am slain, or if I am hailed as a hero, I am left wanting. The crown atop my head means nothing as I crave for the peace and solitude of my tower, the sword in my belly does not give me the release of death that I crave as my scales stop it from piercing my heart, leaving me to hide in my cave in agony, and the shield on my back does not protect me nor others from the pain and grief of what I have seen, it does not protect from the thoughts that race in my mind.
I do not want to be the main character of my story. I have been the princess, the dragon, and the knight, and yet I am still left longing. My story is not yet done but I do not wish to be in it. Maybe the next chapter will not be about me, maybe the next chapter will change my story, maybe the next page, the next line, the next word, will make me want to be the main character. Maybe one more day in the tower, one more piece of treasure, one more foe slain or peasant saved, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe! I cry out, praying my author chooses to be kind to me and yet I realize with a shock that I am still standing with my shoes in the tar and a pen in my hand. My eyes unglaze and I look into the other room which I have so desperately been trying to get to and see my desk and my paper waiting for me and yet I still cannot unstick myself from the floor as I realize I am my own author. The pen in my hand feels like a shackle just as much as the tar on my shoes and yet I know it is the one thing that can change my story, the one thing that can give the hero not just a happy ending but a conclusion, a reason to be proud of being the main character of my story. And yet, I stand still. The tar has dried, I could slip out of my shoes and cross it now and yet I don't. Why don't I, why don't I leave this retched room and finish my story, why do I stand here like the princess waiting for be saved, like a dragon caught in a cage, like a knight caught in a trap?
I do not want to be the main character of my story. I do not want to be the princess, the dragon, the knight, or the author and yet I am all of those things. The pen in my hand my sword, the shoes on my feet my glass slippers and the tar that surrounds me my treasure hoard. The other room is my happy ending, it is how I escape the tower, it is how I secure my gold, it is how I save the princess. I curse all three of them for being in my way and yet I know it is not their fault it is mine alone, I am the author who has been avoiding writing, I am the author who keeps saying I have writers block when the publication house tells me they need another chapter, I am the author who does not want to write my own story.
I am the author, not the main character. The main character, my façade, is nothing more than what I wish to be. I sit here and curse myself "I do not want to be the main character, I do not want to be the main character, I do not want to be the main character," over and over again but I know that those words are a lie every time they leave my lips. The main character is exactly who I want to be but I am the author, the author who is so jealous of my own protagonist that I cannot bring myself to finish their story.
I want to be the main character in my own story.
I am instead the author, left wanting.
