It is rather easy to call people out for their wrongdoings, to berate them for their shortcomings, to point out their flaws, but sometimes, what we do not see is the shame; the searing shame. It is in their voice, their reluctance to speak, but we refuse to listen. It is in their hesitation to text back after months of them being gone. It is dripping off the very clothes they wear; their self-soothing, self-loathing playlists you cannot bear to call music; their refusal to leave the house, their refusal to look the world in the eye on a mediocre Tuesday.

© Sara Richies, 2014

****

You are hiding. You are still hiding.

You are always hiding.

In pockets of shame.

Kids can be cruel. They mock your weight and you find yourself wearing sweaters in the heat for the next decade or so. Your mind is a bog and your chest is hollow and you search for things to fill it up and you eat and eat and eat — fries and talc and all the carbs, all the poison, all the media, all the words, all the spice, all the small sufferings. But the hollow is really a black hole, disguising, because it tricks you. Then, one day, in your twenties, you find out that you have lost all that weight and somehow, you were the last to know. Only, when you look in the mirror, nothing has changed and even though your cheeks are now hollow too and your clavicles are prominent, you are the same.

It took a while for you to accept how ephemeral things are, that there are flowers that bloom late; that very few of those thrive in the darkness. And that everything groans. It is a struggle. School. Work. Balance. Life. All of it. Your lenses are different, unique. Does that not mean everyone else’s are, too? So, like everyone else, you search for and find the small portals of escape. Escapisms. Temporary. Worlds within pages and religion and games and people and sex, patterns and prayers to gods unknown. But it is a lie, all of it. A façade. You are lacking in object permanence and the hands of your problems are just large enough to cover their faces, temporarily.

It is quite easy to talk to a stranger, see. But they never graduate. They never become friends. The hurdles are impossible and you are a terrible professor, because those are excuses in stead of real credit units. Those are walls, walls that are too high, walls that have made you a prisoner too. You who had the stickiest memory. You who never forgot dates and remembered every single birthday. Is it your care that is temporary? Because a heart of gold would have a half-life too. Are there icebergs in shallow waters? Are still waters deadly? Are you simply a concept? Will it kill you if you are vulnerable one more time? If you sent that text, does it chip away at your ego? If you smiled into a camera lens, would you combust?

You procrastinated the day away again today and the deadline has come to take its penance. It is another text left unanswered and another condolence message you could not type. April is drawing to a close and you are yet to open the book you were meant to finish before February started. You are closed off too and all your friends are beyond burning bridges. You used to text them every day, remember? And then, less and less, because apparently, you are in the adulthood and you are terrible at it. Like you are terrible at everything. Communication. Reading people and reading books, reading your notes, reading intentions. Routines.

It has been more than two decades and you still live off your parents. You are getting too old to keep blaming them for the shortcomings you have inherited. You are up all week, wasting time with people you do not like. Something must be wrong with you, surely. The excuse of being busy acquiring a formal education cannot be used anymore. You should get a job, but, for the life of you, you cannot. Or is it that you simply would not? You are complicit in a comfort that is false; a comfort zone that really is a twilight zone. You should get a purpose — and if those are sold in the city, pretend you could afford them; grab a confidence kit while at it. You should cut the strings, come into your wings and fly away.

The others and their conversations reek, casually, of casual sex and you. simply. do not. get it. You told the one you wanted to be theirs and you got back an application form for a friends-with-benefits position and were expected to fill it. You are not the first nor are you the last yearner, but it feels like being skinned alive and you would rather that than reach out and ask — to be loved, again. There are lies and there are liars, there always will be. There are those that take it by force. But, there is no luck, and in this film, you know, there is no happy ending. You are a fool for believing and trusting — and diagnosing and praying; you are a fool for trying. It will always be your fault. There is no one to blame.

Shame is a spiral, a downward spiral — and from it spills a disgusting tirade of self-pity.

What choice do you have?

You pick a rock and you roll it.