it chases me
Often, I feel like I'm lost in the world. It seems too heavy to think about what comes next, or what came before. And to think I have a choice-- where I go, adrift, floating from one place to another. There was a period of my life where I believed I would end up couch-to-couch, hitchhiking from one destination to another, writing introspective journals, a quiet, but busy life spent mostly on the sides of highways, alone. A part of me still desires an adventure, but mostly, I am terrified and hate it. Hate adventure. Hate unpredictability. Hate the loss of routine. I fantasize a lot about meeting a friend from middle school in a coffee shop in thirty years. I want to ask: did it look like I was drowning? And I'm so in love. I that I am underwater sometimes. That my emotions don't match. I know I'm easy to read, but sometimes I just want to cry, and cry, and not worry about being likeable, being funny, being a person. Just a droplet of water. Like the shores of something that broke me a long time ago. The sand is still there, its grains leaving scratches on my irises, but the waves are gone. Depression is an unusual beast, maybe a disease, but more like a virus that never leaves you, the echoes of it in a slow, stretched-out game of pursuit as eternity stretches on. And its nature overtakes; catches me in a handshake when I least want it to, wringing me dry. It's difficult to remember why I present myself in the semi-satirical way I do, in those times, why I laugh at every joke, embarrass myself a little to give a friend a laugh after a bad test grade. And it's so hard, not to be a little too overeager, like an immature puppy dog, not to jump and leap and giggle and bound. Because I always come crashing down to Earth, yes, she leaves me with scraps and memories. Why are you so ugly? Why are you so ugly? Why are you so ugly? Gosh, I hate to be materialistic. I hate to worry about appearance. Even when I'm told: it's okay. Because when she tells me I'm pretty I just don't believe it. I don't think I'll ever believe it, and that realization makes me want to hide away forever. I wish I could feel okay all the time. She makes me feel so loved but I twist it in my brain: she doesn't love me anymore, she doesn't like me, I'm loud, annoying, overeager, boring, and then I just can't do it anymore. I make myself feel awful. Why do I do this? When I write something beautiful, I make it ugly out of insecurity. I don't know how to end this. I feel like my mood changes faster than I can think.