Crimson Tombstones

This is my voice, pure and true.

            You weren’t supposed to destroy my confidence. You weren’t supposed to, so why did you? Why did you yell at me to be more confident?Why did you call me immature when I didn’t argue back? Why did you say I need to get my priorities in order? Because I have, they’re just not the order you want them to be. Why do you say I won’t make it on my own without you telling me what to do? You’ve never let me be on my own. Why can’t you see all I’m trying to do is make you proud of me? Because when I’m proud of me, you always say I need to do more, need to work harder, need to be better. You never stop to say you’re proud of what I’ve accomplished. Why would I ever have confidence?

            I love you, and I know you love me. And I appreciate everything you do for me, but can you stop for a minute and let me be me? Because I’m not. I’ve never been me around you. You don’t approve of it; you think I’m ‘better than that’. You judge who I hang out with; just because they go to a less academic school and don’t take as hard of classes as I do; Doesn’t mean they’re stupid; Doesn’t mean they’re below me; Doesn’t mean you have the right to judge them in front of me.

            I. Am. Not. You.

            I.  Am. Me.

            This. Is. My. Life.

Please let me be me. Let me live my life the way I want to. You want the best for me, I’m glad you do. I know some people who don’t have any supports to help them. But, I need to be able to be myself.

            Have you really not learned how to tell when I’m upset? Can’t you see when I shut myself up and don’t interact to anything I’m not being disobedient? Can’t you see when I don’t answer you, everything is not okay? Have you noticed when I’m upset, I have never turned to you to make me feel better? Every time I have tried, you didn’t understand what I was trying to say, or you turn it into something that makes me feel even worse? Don’t you see when you talk to each other (I can still hear you) about me, how it makes me feel?

            I feel like I’m never going to live up to your standards. I feel like I will never make you proud. I feel like I don’t deserve you. I feel like I’m not good enough, but that’s probably true.

           

            When you say I need to be more confident, can you see why I’m not? Can you see I’m not fishing for compliments? Can you see that’s what I genuinely think about myself?

            Have you tried to fix that? Sometimes I feel like you care so much about my future, you don’t actually see me. And other times that you are so afraid of what others will think, you never wonder what I think.  You care so much for me, and want the best I can be so I can have the best opportunities and a life better than yours; I feel like it overpowers wanting me to be myself.

            I swear I love you more than any other person could, but I’m not sure you’ll see much of me after I graduate. I constantly live with the fear you will judge me unworthy, that I won’t be who you see me as, and that I’m one of “those people” you speak about. Every time you yell at me, scold me, tell me to be better, I count down the days until I can leave. Was that your intention? Have you noticed how it affects me?  

 

Want to guess how many times I’ve silently cried myself to sleep?