Three a.m

Thanks to kristopher and pari. Their reactions helped me click the 'publish' button.

I feel like my whole entire life is passing me by. That I am twenty and I haven’t a revelation to my name. I fear my entire life will pass by in replica decades and that I will be left an old woman with regrets that clutch at her throat, bringing her to tears ever so often. Nothing to achieve. Nothing to look forward to. Just a vacuum ironically filled with hope yet reigning back hope to replace it with pessimism.
I am in turmoil. I am in constant contradiction of my pessimistic thoughts. Yet it remains. Like a cold stone in my gut. Immovable, impassable, ever-present. I’m beginning to realize that I am beginning to give in to this stone and its call. It is inscribed with the stories of millions of others, as human and imperfect as I, who just gave up. Who surrendered because it was too difficult to make a life in their world.

I often pray to a god I do not believe in. I pray feverishly for me to be transported back to a time where I will feel at ease with myself and those around me. I grit my teeth as I pray. Knowing how foolish I must sound. For this reason I would never voice my turmoil to a soul. It remains within my being. As though bound to the stone in my gut. The stone of the losers-the people who have given up. Who let fear feed on their persona and let the stone become a cancerous growth that becomes heavier and heavier till it consumes them whole and stiffens the blood in their veins.
Why must I be like this? I believe I have talent. I believe that I am as good as most out there yet I am bogged down by my eyes that register every movement of those I envy and by the thoughts that enter my head as my eyes are feverishly taking in all they can. The thoughts dissuade me. The thoughts make me feel like I have nowhere to go. That I have reached a deadly plateau of ‘average’ and have ceased any forward movement.
My body tingles as I write this because the truth does that. It makes you tingle in places. Your neck, your head, your stomach. It makes you feel like your pores are vibrating. Like they are all alive at once. I have often felt this. When I fall into bed and am still for the first time in a day. Then they vibrate. But that is a good vibration. They thank me for the work I did. For making them feel alive, for making them work together. But this is different. They want to no longer work as a unit but as individuals. I want to give in to them. But all I do is run my fingers hard through my hair to create a rival sensation. To forget their tingling. Or at least to mask it. To mask their traitorous aim. To feel whole again. But they continue. They continue to whisper, to vibrate and whisper pleas of freedom. But no I will not let them go. I will not let them be individual. I will deny them their pleasure as I feel I have been denied mine.
The stone is my gut is feeling warm. It is often warm as it shrinks. I run my hands hard through my hair, over my shoulders, down my arms and over my stomach. The tingling is going away, but it echoes still in my wretched memory, lingering as a warning of it return. But then that will be in a while, when I feel hopeless again. When I think of giving up again. When I am weak again.
For now I am safe. I feel the warmth of confidence. I decide on which smile to smile. The one that makes my one dimple show, I think. That one is a winner on most days, on most people. I square my shoulders. I suck in my gut. I walk into the room and I am me again. No one must ever know.