Month: February 2022

Masks

On By MetariIn personal, WritingsLeave a comment

The first mask
Was to be what everyone wanted of me.
Smart. Cute. Happy. Docile. Obedient. Everything a good child should be.
But I was just an actor in a role I never signed up to play.
A pawn with no life of his own. 
A blank slate for those who dreamed of days long past.

The mask shifted as I grew older.
Child became teen
And the second mask
Was one of instability and helplessness.
Broken, the manic pixie dream boy they always wanted.
Maybe I wouldn’t be cast aside so easily. 
“Fix me, and break me, and fix me again, please.”
Because everyone loves a pet project.

A little lie to draw them in.
“I had a dream about you, what do you say we make it a reality?”
The third mask
Where I became the slut so desperate for the love I was never given
A mask behind which I committed
Sins so foul that my soul will always remain tainted
In the name of not being abandoned again.
Shrouded the reasoning in lies just so I could repeat it again and again.
“Please, care about me. I need someone to take care of me.”
Just so I wouldn’t be alone.

The blood in my mouth from the truth withheld in an effort to make someone care.
I was no better than what I claimed of any of them.
I was no better.
Proving, that just maybe people are right to say what they think of this disorder.
Because it’s what I’ve always done, isn’t it?
Charm. Lie. Hurt. Beg. Repeat.
Blood, dripping down my nails
As I claw at my proverbial throat
Begging myself for sanity.
To end this madness.

Masks forged with a lifetime of neglect
Tailor made to charm whoever I spoke to
A revolving door of so many personalities
I could never quite get a handle on
And in the process I
Became a pale imitation of what it means to be human.

Lie after lie mounted the tension within the masks and
They began to crumble
Pieces strewn at my feet, a monument to my failures
Revealing what lay underneath
Nothing more than a collection of secrets, mistakes, and sins
Who I am at my core is no one.
I am everyone.
It is whoever you need me to be
Whoever you need me to be so that maybe this time I won’t be alone.

Clemency of the Self

On By MetariIn Personal, WritingsLeave a comment

It’s a weird feeling when you’ve pulled out the final stick from who you claimed to be and the structure fell upon you. And you’re there, standing in the ruins, alone.

There’s a core to you, of course, but who really are you when you dust settles? After so long with something so false you tried to make yourself believe it, too… but it’s collapsed and there’s nothing of substance left of you. 

So you built it anew. There’s not much else you can do, right? You’ve got to reforge yourself into who you were meant to be, not the lie you relied on for decades to keep yourself safe.

But it’s terrifying, isn’t it? But in the destruction of everything you were, you can see a road far worse than the one you’ve chosen to walk. Don’t look back.

And when next you look in the mirror and still don’t recognise yourself, you’ll realize eventually, maybe, it’ll be okay. 

The pillars crumbled from within. Bit by bit, it ate away at you, unable to hold such a secret over everyone. It wasn’t the secret itself though, was it. It was how it made you feel.

How it made you come undone in all of the worst possible ways when you couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, sure that no one had ever felt as low as you did. 

Brick by brick, the gnawing sensation inside your ribcage that told you “this is wrong” ate away at you until there was nothing left. Nothing to turn to. No one to relate to you. So you bit the proverbial bullet lest you bite the literal one.

You threw off the cloth suppressing your true being and you told them. You told them the truth for once. You let all your carefully crafted masks shatter under the weight of being yourself.

And sure, maybe this wasn’t what you’d ever intended. Without those masks, could you really tell who you’re meant to be?

You’ve built yourself up into someone new; you’ve watched as the dust settled. You’re free now. Free to be who you want to be, who you need to be. You’re no longer bound by the shackles of others’ ideals of who you should be.

You’re you, after all. And that’s all you can be.