Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Twenty Six - Distorted Views

What if I was the one with the distorted view on reality? Maybe I was the bad guy. After all, every antagonist is battling for good in their own mindset. Nobody intentionally benefits evil. And who’s to say that it wasn’t me who had it all wrong?

Hitler honestly believed that he was improving the world and making our planet a better place when he committed his currently universally despised mass genocide. Bullies were strongly confident that they had the right to put down the weak and thought their victims deserved what they received. Fuck, the Joker definitely thought that he was helping bring about the greater good when he attempted to destroy Gotham City.

This was not something that I wanted jolting around my skull and screwing with the lens – however smudged and cracked it may already be – that I experienced everything through. Junior year had done enough to jumble my mind and alter what I had previously conceived to be undoubtedly true; very little was simple fact to me anymore. It’s true what they say, that there’s two sides to every story, but humans are so impossibly bad at both recognizing and accepting someone else’s version of an event or contrasting opinion.

So, despite my being more ticked off than helped by considering the possibility of myself being the one who was constantly incorrect, there were certainly many who needed to let themselves realize that it might not always be the world beating them down, and rather themselves limiting their abilities and ruining opportunities. I, of course, was a prime culprit of this offense, having often gone through bad days internally moaning about how life was so unfair and silently begging for something to freaking go my way for once. However, I was fully and comprehensively aware of the fact that the universe was not concerned in the least with my well being – or lack thereof- and that there were no evil gods intentionally working to wreck me.

That being said, when  I consecutively stubbed my toe on the bottom of the fridge then got ridiculed by an empty freezer, looking hopelessly up to the sky and pleading with a God that I didn’t believe in to stop pointlessly torturing me was perfectly justified. Nonetheless, I knew that there were far too many people on this planet who solely blamed themselves for every single thing that had ever and would ever be anything less than perfect in their lives. You know, those kids who get thrown off their bike and bit asphalt who then reprimanded themselves for not seeing the branch that had awkwardly caught their wheel rather than viewing the accident as it was; chance, random, and  unavoidable.

I was not a positive human, by any means, but I was also surprisingly realistic. I tended to watch the world with an unbiased mindset, mostly seeing things the how they actually, truly were. Some were voluntarily negative and others had fucked up brains that did not allow them to realize the good in everything, but I was right in the middle of optimism and pessimism.  

Fully knowing all of this when I tripped, spilled my change, and nearly walked into a hairy old man all on the way to the grocery store, though, did not have any effect on the insistence that I was doomed by some ancient curse that always slumped into my head. And, on the opposite side of the spectrum, it was always the self-deprecating words splintering my consciousness - encouraged by not knowing how to solve a math problem that our teacher had never taught us how to do, something that could not possibly be determined my fault - that had a razor scarring my skin.   

Knowing something and really believing it, are, sadly, not remotely near being the same thing. It’s quite strange how little opinions and knowledge actually contribute to actions. Humans will do anything to talk strangers off the ledge while teetering on it themselves. We desperately ache to save others while destroying ourselves without a care.

If only everyone didn’t see themselves as the exception to everything. Sure, this applies to the dicks who think it’s fine to double park and will still key other’s crooked cars, but also to all the irrational people who preach about beauty being both unimportant and inherent, yet cringe away from mirrors and obsessively avoid their reflections.

Resulting from this extensive thinking, when the chilled water cup next to me tipped off the windowsill, splattering the plastic sheathed library book and my crumpled torso, I glared at the droplets with irritated eyes, immediately contemplating why I deserved to have my drink flung off a ledge by some malicious cosmic force. Right after that, though, as I was standing up and seeking out paper towels to clean up my accidental mess, I realized that it was only a random interaction between the wood of the sill and condensation under the glass that caused it to slide to the floor.

It was very conflicting, since I wasn’t a religious person and didn’t really believe that a higher power dictated the events of my life, yet I was still ticked off by an invisible force sabotaging me whenever something slightly bad happened. Science was what I put my faith in, and there was definitely a simple explanation of the sequence of reactions that had gravity winning, the cup plummeting, and water flying everywhere. Surely if I paid more attention during physics and possessed a technical mind, I wouldn’t put the fault of that spill anywhere, because it was natural and normal.

But, then again, I was neither religious or scientific, head still trying to decide which one of those mindsets could more accurately determine the cause of my recent annoyance. And maybe I was to blame for the water drenching our living room walls, because if I’d pressed the drink back further against the blinds, wouldn’t it have stayed steadily in place? Or, perhaps, I should have placed it on an actual table, where there was next to no chance of it toppling over. But then again, some mythical God could send a lightning bolt to knock it down or nature could strike it out with an unfortunately landing meteor.

Eventually, kneeling on the old hardwood and mopping up the splattered water, I concluded that there were very rarely any powers - of whatever origin or background - purposefully conspiring against me. No higher forces affected my existence, nature was indifferent to the life of one teenager, and I myself in no way directly caused any of the little inconveniences that so quickly built up and consistently tested my cracking sanity.

Anyways, it didn’t matter. I was probably the only person who gave two shits about what made my drink spill. And none of the everyday irritants that plagued me were actually to blame for my occasional borderline mental breakdowns – those were all on me and my mind being a fantastic fuck up. Over thinking was my biggest, and, really, only pressing problem.

So none of that even mattered. I cared about the most stupid, pointless things, and practically everything that really was significant and important had absolutely no ability to induce any emotion in me anymore. Fuck it all. 

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I don't even know if this chapter makes any sense and feel like none of you will like it but this book (I intentionally didn't mention the title because I basically gave away the entire plot) really fucked up my head for awhile and I needed to get it out of my thoughts. That's why I wrote this story, to let things out, but I feel increasingly pressured to actually make it good and really don't want to let anyone down, so... I tried. Please comment and vote! (On the bright side, I got YMAS tickets today, yay!)

xoxo

Rose

(If you really want to read that book, look in the comments. I've relayed its title and author like 50 times.)