April 24th around 5:50 pm a group of boys took it upon themselves to laugh.
I proceeded to look around to see if someone had fallen, to see if someone was wearing, or not wearing, something they shouldn’t,
I waited.
I began to walk faster.
“But It’s Better if you Do” by Panic at the Disco was blaring in my ears so whatever they were saying was blocked out by the blare of Brendon Urie’s voice…
I still don’t get what was so funny—but I have an idea.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been subject to jokes about how I look.
I am the **** of everyone’s fat joke,
My comedy is a product of every snicker, every cackle, every time I’ve been called Big Momma or Rasputia.
My pearly white smile is painted by the white lies I tell myself and everyone else to get through the day.
I wonder if people ever stop to think if there is a person, suffocating, lonely in the center of this big, fat meat suit.
I wonder if people ever think before they speak or laughing at me when I eat.
I wonder if people know that I was raised by the strongest single mother in the world, so I have skin tougher than steel so their words can’t hurt me,
A mother who raised 3 children on her own.
A mother of an 8 year old
Whose father died in Honduras 2 years ago after being deported back 2 years before that—she told us it was a car accident,
but my mother taught me was to be nosey and to always search for the truth, especially when it’s being hidden from you.
My little brother’s father, the love of my mother’s life, was gunned down murdered in cold blood.
She is a mother of a 23 year old
Who has had Asperger’s his entire life, has dealt with being shipped from school to school because it’s so hard to find a special education program for him.
My mother taught me patience is the biggest virtue, and that my anger with his repetitive questions and running around is nothing compared to the anger he feels with himself every day for being a “burden” on those around him.
A mother who
Beats herself up over the fact my brother my father’s side is addicted to drugs,
My brother’s mother was a drug addict and so was my father at the time,
And even though my father was able to clean himself up, he had so many warrants out for his arrest it forced him to play hide and seek with the police and his own children
So for months at a time my mom would take care of my brother, thought about adopting him, but of course that didn’t happen—
His mom got clean.
My dad was finally caught, things were looking up
Until his mother got ***** again, rolling with dogs, her arms look like she was eaten up by fleas
My father was never a father,
Disappearing for weeks without so much as even a breath and reappearing as if he never left
No wonder my brother can never stay clean.
My mother taught me to love my brother unconditionally, that no matter what I have to laugh with him when he needs a laugh
Because my brother doesn’t know what stability is, he doesn’t know what standing on his own two feet feels like because he is always high.
She taught me to always laugh with him because I don’t know if he’ll come down the next time he gets high.
A mother of
An 18 year old girl who suffers from clinical depression and anxiety, but has to keep it swept under the rug because the public school system failed in teaching her about mental illness.
However, my mother taught me that as much as I depend on her she depends on me, that I am her backbone and she believes that even if I sink I will learn how to swim before the tide engulfs me and I’m taken too far from the shore.
I’m ripping off this big, fat meat suit because I’m tired of suffocating,
I’m learning how to swim.
I can feel the sun now.

You make my life a scientific statement
If I pretend to be normal, Then I will be spared
But you lied to me
It was not as easy as you said it would be

My boyfriend doesn't understand you
I wonder if he hates you
He thinks you'll go away
I know you won't

My mother knows you live here
She sees you peeking out of my eyes
She hears you snicker when I get confused
I think she wants to be your friend

My father doesn't know you are here
I've never told him that you made me yours
But I know you'll introduce yourself
You don't like to not be known

My brother can comprehend you
He's seen you holding my hand for years
He knows how you whisper in my ear
Maybe he can hear you too

But I love you
You make laughter roll off my teeth
You make maps in my brain
It's not your fault that you're here
And I'd like you to stay

My Father said,
“Sometimes, Conor, you talk too much
And talk too little.”

I’ll let you figure that out on your own
So here I go:

I started off as shy
Didn’t like to meet people’s eyes
I was floating in the skies
So when I dropped I was surprised

I began to talk more,
Sometimes I just don’t shut up
There’s so much I have to say
But of time there’s not enough

My Primary years were years of torture
Those twisted words a killer
“Stupid. *****. ******. Loser”
I shut my eyes and mouth, head down, just kept cruising
Hoping. Praying
That someone would maybe save me

But I was unlucky
No-one came to rescue me
So pretty soon I hated the world that surrounded me
A father gone, overseas, fighting a war.
Because when it comes to family, some things are worth dying for.

Well pretty soon after, I wanted to die
When I found out that I wasn’t quite alright
My difference wasn’t me just being a shy guy
That untroubled dragon, unburdened, flying in the sky

Because I was diagnosed with Asperger’s at the age of eight
Chance hated me, it seemed, and so too did fate
Adding fuel to the fire, an internal pyre
That consumed me, hungrily, leaving me broken and tired

So my innocence was ignorance
You can tell by the evidence
I wanted an exit
Another way I could end this

Years down the track, and who am I now?
Am I that joker you thought I was, head up and proud?
The friend to the friendless, my speech is just endless
But at the end of the day I’m only pretending

Because I’m not okay, I’m a broken part
To a greater whole of some use, just needing a kick-start
My friends and family, you see, they disagree with me
Saying worn is not broken, and either way it isn’t easy

It hasn’t been easy, torn by the truth
And mocked for my teeth, hit at times, left bruised
Sticks and stones may break my bones and all that other ****
By words hit hard too and at times it’s hard to deal with it

Now I don’t seek attention, just tried to let them know
That I was struggling and there were some things I couldn’t let go
From the first time I was called “Bucky” to the handle of a blade
I wanted to tear apart all the **** they had made

So I started hacking away at myself
Trying to find a better someone else
The answer lies not in blood spilled, or the steel used to slash through
But in your mind hides a better you, a person with a better view

It just takes time to uncover
The century’s best discover
An artefact, buried, hidden, within your soul
Just clear your problems
Try and solve them
And you’ll be whole

“Sometimes, Conor,
You talk too much
And talk too little”

Do you understand?

I* remember the feeling of waking up for nothing
                   The empty, gray taste everything had
        How I'd stare off
Out windows
Or across streets

                              I remember walking to the river
           And the grass not bending beneath my feet
              The current wouldn't change nor stop for me
   And I imagined it would always be this.
               Having everything I had always wanted right in front of me and it not matter

            I remember being stuck in the rain and not getting wet

         Watching
             Quietly accepting what was, and simultaneously not acknowledging what it meant.
    
        It was comfortable, but now *I want control.

have you benefited from me?
this friendship
this love
is there anything more i can give you?
so your heart
i can touch

you try
everyday
and i know that it gets tough
but distance would mean the world to me
if only you understood that much

i know what its like in your shoes
trust me
i know
i do
but i also know that this is the only way
to stop me from hurting you

to answer your question
you have
ive learnt that sometimes the truth
can only serve to break someone
and so ill keep lying to you

your life cannot benefit from my honesty
and something i know too well
is that sometimes people grow better
without me
sometimes i just shouldnt tell

im sorry i know you dont understand
and perhaps you never will
but my heart it hurts for you everyday
but soon youll learn to tell your heart
"be still"

It's pure madness.
It is.
You think all these weird and strange and impossible thoughts, and you just want to, no, need to, tell someone every little thing you've ever thought.
But you can't.
Because you're absolutely terrified of what they'll think of you.
Because they'll judge you for being different.
For being abnormal.
They'll judge you for being you.
And then your mind starts to move at a thousand miles per hour to form logical reasons why you can't be the same as them.
Your head begins to spin because of all these thoughts colliding, and you can't stop it.
You couldn't stop it even if you tried.
Even if you wanted to.
Then, your mind, it... it just dies.
As if it were pushed to its absolute limit.
You feel horrible, and it's all because you don't know anyone could possibly comprehend you when you can't even do it yourself.
Then, to punish yourself.
To feel numb.
You cut yourself.
And you bleed.
And scar.
You hide it so that no one will ever know.
And the worst part?
It works.