"Sometimes, the ones to let go of us is not our enemy, but us ourselves, to set us free."
All these life I've been chained up, tied up to my very inner core - by me.
I told myself I'll be safe like this. Nobody can set me free, nobody can catch me, hurt me.
I told myself to be brave, to chain myself, turn myself, paint myself all over and wear my beautiful mask to make myself look like them - those people I live with, those I adore, those I get annoyed with, those whose lives seem so, laid out.
I told myself it would be okay.
I was different, that was fine, but I was in some way, corrupt and dark. That I bring the bad in people. That I was terrifying, so I decided to paint myself and make my own collection of masks, sitting there in all its glory.
I told myself I was going to help people. I was going to change. I was going to learn from them, how they put their masks on, how they paint themselves, how they acted...
I told myself I was not good enough. That I needed to try harder. That the reason they kept hurting me was because I hurt them.
So I should just chain myself until the moon goes up, then I can be free, when no one can be hurt. When I can truly accept myself.
Then in the morning, it all goes back. I look at my script, I look at my friends and family. I try to help them as much as I can. I know I'm flawed but I'm trying, gaining as much happiness as I can as I do something good - for once.
I knew I was weak, but I try to be strong - but somehow... I feel as if I'm not strong enough.
What do you think?
Am I crazy? Weird?
I don't know what you think, but life as you must be great.
You get to have the graceful pen and the flowing ink, lay out all its mysterious stories, gravitating towards them, stories laid out all over you.
You get to see stories from all over the world, the universe.
You get to help us, and you hurt us, but in the end, you're still you and the one making mistakes is us.
And I know what you'd say O wise and grand paper.
You shouldn't paint yourself, chain yourself up, or wear a mask.
But then, I worry that my darkness will seep all around me and I won't be able to handle it anymore and -
But I know what you'd say, accept who you are blah blah blah.
But you can't help it if you feel so useless and worthless, especially when people call you that.
After so long, you've gotten used to it, it doesn't hurt you any more, but the worst thing is that it gets ingrained in you in some way.
A side of you thinks you are amazing and great and knows both flaws and strength while the other side thinks, you can do better, you haven't done anything for society ever since you were born.
But it's hard.
It's hard in this new society to truly accept who you are when there are others there, whom hurt you, whom you are scared to hurt because you don't want to hurt them, so you let them scratch you.
And then in the end, I think that, maybe I'm just too weak. I pity myself for letting myself go and drown within the tides of insecurity and harm. I pity myself for thinking this way. I pity myself for letting other control me, for being weak, for all this... nonsense.
I pity myself for not changing anything.
I pity myself because how can I think that I'm worthless, less than a grain of sand, and yet think that I am good just the way I am when no one is around.
I pity myself for having to put on the masks and paint and waste my entire life dedicated to making others happy because they don't like who I am.
But it's hard to change what's slowly been ingrained to you, even when you know it's wrong.
We just blindly follow orders from others and assume it right and we're nothing but mere ants, ants that haven't yet evolved into a form of community in which we all appreciate one another.
I pity myself for thinking no one can accept me for who I am, and the fact that I believe that fact.
Maybe that's why I have no feelings for anything anymore.
Maybe that's why I choose to distance myself from the walls of society, why we all distance ourselves until we get further and further apart from one another until - there's nothing left to hold us together and we all crumble down, down down down down down into the holes of oblivion and pity that we couldn't do anything when we knew what was right but too scared to do it.
It's the truth.
And I pity myself for not standing upright and appreciate who I am.
Whenever I'm alone, I look in the mirror, I know what's wrong with me, but I'm proud of it, proud of my looks, feelings, personality - I think I look fine.
But as soon as I step out into the cold severe world, all that thoughts just crumble down as I see those who haunted me again and again, and those I hurt again and again and I think, what's the point?
What's the point of all these masks and paint if we don't do anything right as much as we try?
The problem lays in the hands of society who forces us, who believes that we need those beautiful masks to cover up or horrid faces, our horrid souls. We need those paints to disguise who we truly are, to pretend to be a fish in a land without water.
It's ridiculous - but we believe it.
And even worse.
I believe it.
I can't believe those hours spent on my withering mask and paint and now, looking back at my pure body and soul, it's nearly gone, I don't even know what to do now.
All these years have past and all I've been doing is withering myself away until I disappear, back into the shadows of oblivion, letting the arms of the cruel society whisk me away, hug me gently, then tightly until I can't breath anymore, until I can't do anything because I let those same arms manipulate me, twist me in such a way that there's no going back because I know that I'm fading.
But I know there's still time.
Because after all, we do have one life.
A long life in which we can choose to learn from our mistakes.
I know I pity myself, I think me weak.
But now writing this, I start to realize the importance of not weakness, but strength.
Weakness is relative.
It's when you fail to understand that you always have the choice to stand up. The failure to notice that you are stronger than you appear to be, that you are stronger than many think.
That the arms of society, the arms of our cruelest heart that have kept us chained up for years, they don't exist at all and that we made them up.
And the only way to be free is to stand up.
To rid yourself of all these hatred.
To learn to improve.
To learn to accept.
To learn that you, ultimately make the decision for your life and your happiness.
And that strength lies in your heart when you manage to take a small and slow step towards getting up, ridding yourself from those chains and masks and paint.
It'll take time.
But won't it be worth it?
To finally be free?
After all, we've all wanted this, but we've never really gained it because we're always wrapped underneath our consciousness and in the arms of society who gives us false freedom.
I suppose we can do nothing but stand.
And once we stand, we get rid of our enemies.
And once we release ourselves...
I suppose we can continue to make a difference in not just ourselves, but to others, to this vast world of excitement, cruelty, adventure.
~~~
Author's Note:
I suppose I hope you all can relate yourself to this because I believe that many of us feels this way and it's not just this.
We're all too easily manipulated and as a society as a whole, right now I can tell that there are many things we aren't happy about.
But if we try, we have to first embrace ourselves and learn to be free as an individual, can we hope to achieve freedom for the society as a whole.
Please vote, comment, feedback, suggestions, draw, talk, speak gibberish etc. :D
And, last but not least...
~You are amazing.
~You are awesome - because you are reading this, kidding, you are still awesome.
~You are phenomenal.
You are amazing in more than a million different ways.
~ Winter :D