I ache to be understood.
But it's a longing that feels inevitably out of reach. I used to just find it frustrating how people didn't quite get what I was trying to say and how they'd stare at me with a blank look waiting for me to elaborate when I'd already said everything I could.
I don't blame them for not being able to translate my mind but surely they couldn't be so painfully oblivious to how utterly miserable I am.
Maybe it's my fault for not saying the words explicitly. Maybe if I tattoo them across my forehead then people would be forced to listen, to take notice of me and not accept the words "I'm fine" as truth from someone with tears in their eyes and sleeves pulled desperately over their knuckles.
I suppose I'm a hypocrite. I'm always too consumed by my own thoughts that have me gripped so tightly they may as well be hands around my throat to ever even consider that I am as oblivious as the rest of us.
In life we all have our selfish moments but I sometimes wonder if I've been too stuck in a rut of self pity my whole life to realise that the people around me could be suffering to.
But that thought is soon swept away by another that hits the front of my mind full force and all consuming until it too reaches its time limit, and the next thought swallows it whole. My own mind is a stranger to me sometimes. I don't even understand how or why I feel the way I do.
I don't know why I feel this weight on my chest all the time or why my brain seems determined to suffocate me. I don't understand myself and I don't understand why I don't understand myself, but I want others to understand that and I want others to understand me.
But they don't, or at least they didn't until her.
With that damned smile, she captured my heart and deciphered my eyes. She tried to understand me deeply, and even when she failed she got further than anyone else ever had or ever could. My life was a catastrophic blur until Hermione granger came along and put everything into focus.