Pleas of Futility

To The Person Who Will Never Read This

February 5, 2023 3:26am-3:31am

Sometimes I feel lost. Like I don't know who I am. Which is odd for me, because I don't normally feel things. I don't feel hungry, or feel sad, or feel happy like normal people do. Then again, I'm not normal. I recognize that I should probably eat something. I recognize that whatever happened was bad. Or in contradiction, whatever happened was good. And that scares me because I'm not sure I ever will feel. Feel sadness. Feel joy. Feel happiness. Love. Not genuinely, at least. I'm sitting here writing this to you, hoping that I have the balls to send it and leave it there for you to see, but I already know the outcome. I already know I won't. Because doing so would require me to let down these walls I've spent years building; that I continue to build. But I don't feel anything. There are hardly any real moments shared between me and others. And while I hate using it as an excuse, my autism is the reason for that. I've always seen myself as separate from my autism. I used words like, "diagnosed with autism," or "on the spectrum." Now I realize that it was incorrect to do so. I am autistic. No matter what I do, this disorder will define me. The same way others' defined me. The same way they continue to do so. I am different. And I'm okay with that. I know I'll never have or lead the same life as anyone else, regardless of who it is. Spectrum or not, all I am is a pile of mixed compost waiting to sink into this flesh capsule I've been encased in. Trapped in.

My writers craft assignment flooded my mind, if you couldn't tell. With useless things, too. Things like thoughts I'd rather keep repressed. Memories I thought I'd long forgotten about. Stories I'd rather not tell that are essential to why I am the way I am. But I don't feel things, I bury them. Six feet under, like that one Billie song you like. Maybe that's why I don't naturally feel things. Being autistic caused the anomaly. My willingness to ignore it is what ruined me.

That is what I am now.

Ruined.