Breathe in
Greet people, laugh at other people’s jokes, smile.
Breathe out
Wipe that smile off your face, you foolish child.
Have an internal rant at yourself, go on!
Hate yourself for your grades, your personality, your life.
Kick the door in, shatter the glass, destroy it all, but when you
Inhale
Pretend to be normal, okay? It’s not that unbearable, or is it?
Exhale
Yes, it is unbearable! Your smile has become a wince, you ******, you idiot, you maniacal stick in the mud!
I want to put myself in a teensy little jar, painted black so no one would be able to see me.
I do not want see the world and the world does not want to see me.
I can do whatever I want, say whatever I want, think whatever I want.
Sometimes, I’m afraid people can physically see my thoughts and fears.
So they force me into my worst nightmares, kicking and screaming. Begging.
I breathe in
When the air fills my lungs, I have to dream the best things. I have to be normal. I value everything.
But when I breathe out
I feel suffocated. Space and time no longer matter. I’m in my jar again.
I close my eyes, and I see a butterfly, clear and crystal blue. It’s striking boldness catches me.
I wish I were a butterfly, but the foolishness of such naive imagination reprimands me. I open my eyes and I’m back to the darkness of the jar.
I feel it spinning.
I feel it shaking.
Someone’s trying to hurt me. I just hope they don’t take me out of the jar— my home.
I inhale again, the smell of fresh air acidic.
I have to see the blinding mundanity of my life once again. I stifle a cry and turn it into a laugh, I conjure a smile.
Exhaling, Exhaling, Exhaling.
Now I’m safe, now no one can see me, no one can see me.
My own world, the space in the jar is all I OWN, but it’s all I need.
If the world is my oyster, I am trapped in it. I cannot get out.
But do I need to get out? Do I want to get out?
People try to penetrate the thin glass walls of my jar.
But I try not to let them.
They do anyway, and I shun them away. I don’t need their presence to make me alright. The silence is comforting. Because in my jar, I cannot hear a thing, not the faint voices of others, not a murmur, not a whisper.
Inhale (possibly for the last time?)
Ugh, I’m back again. I wonder if I stopped breathing, would I stay in the jar, forever??
Exhale
I will just keep shoving the stupid ******* air out of my mouth until there is no more air left.
Going
Going
Going
Gone.