rooftop thinking

Atop my roof, I can see the world from a bird’s eye view. I can see the colors of all the cars, hear the blaring sirens, feel the wind in my hair. I can think my thoughts all to myself. I can contort my face into any expression. I can jump and smile and skip and scream. I can dance and sing and swing around the chimney. I can cry with my head in my hands. I can cackle like a supervillain, or hold my head high and grin like a superhero.

Heroism and villainy constantly clash within me; they are a battle within my hollow bones. They may exist to tear me apart, to make me wonder who I am. Or, perhaps, they may just exist to combat my boredom.

I have always been bored, because I have always been dull deep down. I have never been someone to know. I masquerade as an individual. I simply become anyone I like, even a little. Anything that impresses me, I emulate. And I am easy to talk to if you talk at me. I will smile and nod and listen, even when I don’t care. I am a creative only to myself; I am compliance personified.

When I first came to know myself about a year ago, it nearly killed me. When I was able to step out of my mind and look back at my life, my chest ached and my heart cracked with the force of my hatred. My body heaved with shame. My mind spiraled. My hands closed around my throat. My eyes closed, unable to see it all for a moment longer.

Change is a strange thing, because it always feels like just pretending. I want to commit myself to changing, but I feel stuck, rooted in the version of myself that weighs me down just by existing. The past is in the past, and in the present too, at every waking moment in my mind. I have always been good at faking it, but I never quite make it far enough.

Only when I am alone can I be me, can I be true, but I don’t know if this trueness is goodness. I don’t know if I would choose fairness over the need for validation. I don’t know if isolation is the cure or the disease, but it is built into the fiber of my being, and I cannot tear it out from my flesh or hollow bones.

I crave connection, but only my ideal versions of it. Anything else lets me down. I let me down. Everyone lets me down, and joy turns to suffering in the blink of an eye. I wish I could rip my sensitivity out of me with a strong and sudden pull. Instead, I am stuck in myself.

Ever since I was young, I lived within the bounds of my own imagination. I could never stay rooted in one place for very long. I had to escape through thinking, leaving, creating. I could not exist within my mortal body without feeling the dread of myself pushing down on my shoulders. My creativity robbed me of my reality. Now, my reality is all I can see and feel, and I want to get back. I want to crawl back into my fantasies and lay myself to rest there, but I can’t quite find the entrance to my dreamscapes anymore, and I am terrified. Terrified of thinking too much, or too little, of myself and of others. Of failure, of change, of stagnation—of all of it.

Life is a series of fleeting joyous moments and chronic disappointments, and sometimes I smile and accept it. Other times, I lay on my roof and stare at the sun, and wait, wait, wait.

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I’m sorry I haven’t been posting/commenting too much, I’ve been experiencing some writer’s block and haven’t been in the best mental state as of late. If anyone has tips on how to be easier on yourself and/or not drown yourself with your own negative thoughts, I’m all ears.

Still love and appreciate you guys on here so much :)