Misshapen Shadows

An overlooked untruth to this world is that bulls are identical with anger. They’re viewed as dangerous animals that display themselves stimulated by rage. Endlessly treated with ridicule and perceived as a challenge to be conquered, we repeatedly perceive bulls through their reaction to being provoked. 

The star speckled horizon before me blurred from my tear brimmed eyes. The full moon appeared to fade as a puddled fog, blending into the night that it should have outshined. 

A recent routine occurrence of my lifestyle had been to pour myself into the moon. When I write scriptures of my heart with pen and paper, merely to throw it elsewhere to evade the shame of what I held was tiring. When I speak to the moon, it allows the demise of faulty memories with each moon phase. However, tonight, these tears of mine were defying gravity, and I held no knowledge of how to face the chaos that sat within. 

“I know you’re just a floating rock circling the floating rock I live on,” I began. “But you help.”

I continue to drift down the boardwalk, unable to differentiate whether the salt stinging my nose was from the ocean or my tears. 

To cope with never understanding how to tame the beast, I would ponder about life from its countless fragments to its mountains. Whether it was as a distraction or a truthful expression was unknown. Tonight, I have wandered on bulls and how they simply react if prompted, similar to how I feel when I take a small glance into my heart.

“No one seems to think about what provoked in the first place,” I said. “Solely it’s backlash. It’s paying attention to the problem and putting the problem in a place of fault, never taking into consideration of what red flag that triggered it.”

Finding myself at the shore, I grant my bare and burning feet to lug me to my usual rock, something that supported me to lean on.

It’s not like I didn’t have anyone to cry to. It’s just that every time I did, no one could recognize me. My true feelings often went unseen, unheard, or never known. I wasn’t alien as far as I could see, but observing the world react towards the simplicity of my existence made me trust I was.

No, I will not think about this. I never cared about my feelings before and I will not break now.

“The matador is the real villain,” I said to the moon. “Hell, maybe it’s not the matador! It’s just human beings. Waving a red flag before the eyes of the bull, what do you expect it to do?”

The messages I was firing out felt incoherent as I listen to myself. The more I pleaded to rebuke the mess within, the more jagged my breathing expelled itself. Events that I intended to throw away smacked me as the intrusive thought it was.

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“I just don’t know how to handle her,” the mother figure of our group said. Her dark bangs seemed to hang low with her concern. “She’s too complex.”

“I love her, but I agree,” our older friend said, lifting his head from his arms that were now crossed. “It’s almost as if...” 

I watched my friend shrug in frustration, his own habit of hesitation.

“Spit it out, man.”

“She’s a fallen angel.”

His gaze quickly scanned through every few faces and sighed. “Her entire existence almost defies everything natural about human beings, and it’s like she’s forced to live in hell and we can’t do a thing about it.”

“Are you saying she’s basically the devil?” said the lighthearted jokester of the group.

“Oh, my god, no!” The older friend’s voice cracked with pressure. “I’m saying it’s like she lives in a different world than we do, and a terrible one at that.”

“Exactly,” the mother figure agreed. “We can’t understand her no matter how hard we try, not even a little. Sometimes I think we’re hopeless help for her, you know?”

I sneaked in a peak; I watched my friends nod in unison. The dream shattered at that moment. Reality pieced itself together for me, as it usually did. The shame clear on their faces with themselves reflected to me, and a just as shameful self-pity forced me to turn away from the scene and run.

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“I chose this,” I said. As I hold my trembling face, I squeeze my hands together.

“I choose to be alone because I have no other choice!” I quivered out.

 The whiplash of my words cast a spell too stubborn to break. As they exploded into thin air, I felt myself empty. Silenced whimpers and the bass of my heart overwhelmed my ears, stronger than the sound of the crashing waves, drowning them out. The tears that were initially defying gravity abode in falling, and all I could do was to feel the liquid pieces of my soul fall and slither down my body. 

If only I could run away with my heart. What a self-loathing hypocrite I am, speaking ill of matadors provoking bulls. I’ve done the same to my own emotions that often take shape of a bull themselves. Constantly fighting myself off, provoking the bull that is my heart and attempting to conquer by teasing and ignoring. 

I hold myself as I crumple, failing to catch my breath that ran with the wind. Face tingling, clothes soaked with tears from myself and the ocean, I’m defeated. The bull has bested me. I was never strong enough to win. I live as the foolish matador, challenging a beast that was never meant to be fought.