“Are you okay?”
She asked me with a sad smile playing on her thin lips.
Her face had a mask of sorrow on it,
While her gaze examined me like I was a subject of an experiment.
She was curious, just like the rest of them.
Trying to see if there was any mud I've kept hidden from her and everyone else.
And she was so sure I did hide it.
Acting like she knew it all, knew every stitch I hid under my shirt.
Acting like she had already read the book without even glancing at the cover.
And I looked at her.
Genuinely looked at her.
Trying to see if I could find something that didn’t seem like an act.
But that ‘something’, never came.
I wanted to scream for it.
I wanted her to show me what I needed,
So I could finally shatter myself like a glass and show her all my broken pieces.
I wanted her to show me something that wasn’t just plain curiosity,
Something that came from the soul without even trying,
Something that she meant just like the way she meant it when she said she wasn’t doing so well.
Like fire I wanted her eyes to spark up with it,
Even if it was just for one microsecond,
Like the flicker of light from a dying firefly,
I wanted her to show me what I was looking for.
So I could show myself to her in return.
But she didn’t.
Her face never lit up with it,
Her eyes never shone.
So Instead of yelling,
“Look at me!
My mind is messier than my bedroom,
I have more stories than I have hair on my skin and
I don’t know what to do to them besides covering them up with a blanket.
I can’t sleep at night because my nightmares never let me rest,
My smile is as real as my mental stability.
And even though my heart beats like a goddamn tornado under my fucking chest all the fucking time
I don’t feel alive at all
I don’t feel alive at all
I don’t feel...”
I smiled.
Bright and cheerful.
Smothering up the conversation with a well practiced line I have uttered a hundred times before.
“Enough about me. Tell me about yourself.”
The funny part?
She did exactly that without a second thought.
[ Image source ]
