The moment after you were born (which apparently was a great miracle) they slapped your *** took your footprints wrote your name on an official certificate wrapped you up and sent you home. The doctors said you were healthy: your parents said you were better than that.
And from then on you were to be exactly that. Excellent in every way. Tall. Charming. Wide-eyed. Witty. Strong. Unbreakable. A statue will be made of you.
Affectionately inscribed to shine in the sun, you've no need to know the darkness: only the weak waste their breath reveling in the moon, howling the night away.
Great care was put into raising you. You are not to take it for granted. Do you not know how high your parents had to fling you for you to hit that pedestal so monolithic?
Expecting you to fly without asking if you feared heights or sought the soft grass instead.
Expecting you to eclipse the Sun oh, so long you stared into it asking how to fly so high sun in your eyes darkness burning in.
Expecting you to See the World in all it's brilliant beauty with those eclipses in your skull with the abyss open eyes.
Given a pen to write great words but I guess they never noticed it had no ink.
Big bulging eyes expected to see everything. Eyes taught to see the flaws in everything eyes with nothing better to look at but televisions and mirrors.
The bathroom mirror where you first realized that you weren't good enough. Hours spent staring at some ugly stranger too proud for friends too quiet for fame too tired for talent.
A living collaboration of flaws held together by bits of pasty skin broken bones and dark eye circles by all the times you were called a failure or all the times they said "you did your best" but you called yourself a failure anyways.
Eyes like mirrors seeing eyes and windows and eyes and glass barriers. All those eyes swirling around you seeing what they want to see, you can only hope they don't see too much. At least you've grown cynical enough to know they're not looking for much to begin with but even still your stomach grows weary.
Here you soar at the prime of your youth surrounded by mirrors eyes full of fluorescent lighting. sleepy and stumbling. Confused as to how anyone could think of you as special and grand. Confused at how everyone else is so much better at simply living their lives. Like they really didn't know that Life was the hardest thing there ever is.
Words fallen upon distracted ears.
Eyes that are full of Life but only the brighter half of it. Eyes as windows staring at screens texting all the silence away. Eyes that are lost in Life loving and living taking every step forward without feeling the weight to ask why.
Oh, and here you are, sitting, perched on a street bench watching the passer-bys go about their day.
Looking at those strange eyes trying to see what they see. Trying to see how anyone could fail to notice that sad statue staring there.
All those times you watched the ones you loved stand in inconsolable silence but if only you knew what to say...
... Nights quiet
the sheen of the abyss reflecting their sorrows back at them.
You found shelter in the darkest corner of existence still expected to converse happily still expected to live with a smile still expected to hide your unfortunate understanding of the way things really work the lead role in the tragiccomedy of your own life set on the absurd stage of our own gravity.
The gravity that is every day of your life the aching in your bones as the alarm goes off the stagger in your step as you stumble forward the tears at night as you have to do it all over again. The only thing temporary are those crashing moments of happiness that shine bright but disappear with the thunder.
You're expected for great love but you never expected the way your heart pounds and your stomach turns when you fight back the tears standing naked there with your darkness hanging out. Staring into a devastated face seeing in perfect form a heart you've shattered.
It's like they don't know just how burdensome these great expectations are.
But perhaps -- most importantly -- they don't understand the beauty of a sunrise after a sleepless, crying night or the gratitude felt from finding a legitimate hand to hold.
You are expected for great things, but then again, everyone thinks they are. But you, but me, but all the rest of the people like us. Let us leave this place with the preoccupations and the pedestals.
Our bodies torn and torn again worn down and weary but somehow still stepping strengthened by the expectations we exchanged for a peaceful sunset and a good night's sleep.
For that little light that we forgot shone in these tired, confused, marvelous eyes.