Selfish
I’m an awfully selfish person.
I crave to be known, but all I do is push people away. I lie and act and laugh and smile like it reflects something in me, but I feel awfully empty. I’m sure people can’t tell though.
I’ve grown so good at knowing how to push all the right buttons. How to smile in a way that appeals to this person, how to giggle like a carefree girl. And no one questions it, I believe I’m a better actress than I credit myself.
I change shape, acting different to suit the person I’m dealing with. Figuring out all the things we have in common and how to goad them to doing and saying what I want them to.
I can tell when someone likes me. And I revel in it, knowing I can never reciprocate the feeling. I revel in knowing the perfect girl persona I’ve created for the people around me is appealing enough to be believed so thoroughly, to be loved as a character of her own.
What can I say? I’d fall in love with her too. Smart, hardworking, funny, beautiful, carefree. Sporty, empathetic, kind, loving. Good at making people feel comfortable to say their darkest secrets but unable to come close to speaking of hers.
No one knows how selfish I am. Granted, they used to see through. Not anymore. No one knows how sick I am, the secrets I hold.
Sometimes I open up a book and read until the tragedy, the saddest part of the book, just to feel something. I cry a bit then close the book, already knowing how it ends. Murder of a loved one, betrayal, grief. I have to read how life was moving to perfection and everything crumbled to feel something. And that isn’t something I consider on my list of disconcerting things about me.
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I only feel human when I read of wars, strangely enough.
No one wins in a war. I’ve read both perspectives, in historical fiction. There are so many different kinds of people in wars. Guilty, hurt, grieving. Sadistic, empty, depraved. Loving, hopeful, sweet. It’s fascinating.
But every perspective loses something. A loved one, compassion, their soul, metaphorically, maybe. I believe a loved one is the easiest loss.
The lucky ones die; the unlucky ones live with what they saw.
It feels as though I’m talking to the void on here, its strangely comforting. I write no first draft, I let all my thoughts spill onto my keyboard and hit publish, only reading it later.
It makes me feel human, so I read it over and over. Imagine how different people could react, wonder if this is how all writers feel. Do all writers feel like they’re keeping themselves a secret from the world?
I know who I am at my core, I’m not soul-less. But I have not yet gathered the courage nor faced the right standards to show someone.
Show them my wounds, my scars. Tell them all my secrets, see the love or the hatred in their eyes when I do. I don’t care. As long as their eyes aren’t void of emotion.
Selfish, aren’t I?
So selfish.
