The Switch

It's like a light switch flipped, but I'm not sure when it happened. The lights no longer come on and there's not a ounce of happiness throughout. The leaves all died and the trees are bare, the berries of joy all shriveled. The lights of the city are so large that they have clouded the view of the stars, almost as if they're no longer available. Millions of voices buzz around, as if the Earth is one giant conference room. Still, the voice of those who need to be heard are not. We drop like flies, yet no one wants to acknowledge the pain. The sorrow, the tears, the loss. My mom once told me, "You are different. This means that you will often be misunderstood, and you will feel alone. You aren't.". I try to remind myself of this from time to time, but lately it's been harder to believe. Am I really not alone, or is that what we all tell ourselves to get along? I believe there are groups of people, like schools of fishes, who are never alone. But what of the the rest of us? We are starfishes. Beautiful to the eye, but alone. We look hard and strong on the surface, but are really just soft and weak on the inside. We hide away, and we slowly get to where we are. Maybe we don't ever know where we're going, or maybe we're lost. I imagine there are more people like me, so maybe my mother was right. I just still feel so alone with these people out of sight. We all wear masks, at least those of us too afraid to show our pain. I try to see through these masks, help in anyway I can. I just hope that someday someone will see through mine and help me away from the pain.