Self-Portrait

Written a number of years back. I was furious at people who are insensitive enough to think that they are the only ones with problems. I suffer, I know others do too. Open your eyes, and see the pain. Help others to alleviate it.

I sit on my bed, staring at the auto portrait on the wall. The likeness is there, the smile that does not quite reach the eyes, the hostile glare. It is only a bust portrait and I wonder what lies below the shoulders and straight, perfectly postured ballet back. The portrait is of me, by me, yet it does not show me in my entirety. It does not show the twin marks on my arms, the tears burned into my cheeks, the callus danced onto my feet, the baroque designs drawn onto my palms or the gash through my heart. It does not show all the reality. It is yet another image in which I am picture-perfect, smiling, an unfeeling puppet. That is not me. I am not the textbook daughter, the ideal student. I have so many flaws, some internal while others are blatantly visible. I wear a constant mask, which veils my true thoughts and beliefs, hiding them from others. Behind the intricate screen that I constructed for myself, a wrecked soul crumbles.

 

There is little joy behind my mossy grey eyes, the shuttered windows to my haunted soul. Inside my frame, a monster lies in wait, prepared to pounce at the next occasion it is offered. It haunts my dreams and shadows my days, floating somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Between sentences of flowery prose, expressions of true love and burning ambitions, my dark thoughts flutter, seemingly innocent ravens. The putrid stink of my corruption lingers in the air I breathe. My hardened heart lets precious few in, for fear of the rejection which I sense is inevitable. I shrink away from the human contact I so desperately need in order to save myself from seeing the pity in their eyes if they learn about my “problem”. I go out in the pouring rain, the bass of my music thudding along with my heart, soothing me, the cold drops seeping through my clothes, trickling down between my breasts. The rain mingles with the salty tears on my cheeks and as I walk beneath the lilacs in the park, old flowers drop down on me. I feel as much in contact with myself and the earth as I can ever be in the middle of this urban survival game. I want to dance without a care, not minding if others see me and think I am mad. I want to scream, untroubled about what people will think. And when I come back inside, breathing in the air so thick that it seems poured out of a can, I am as strong as I have always seemed. I walk with my head held high, refusing to let my defeat show. I need no pity, I want no help, I feel no pain. Or at least, that is what I tell them. In truth, I hurt.

 

My eyes have been cried dry, my scars still show, my passion is still undying, but my facade is starting to crumble. When I remember the scarlet drops which have speckled my arms, I wonder what happened to my pride. How did I sink so low as to resort to a blade for release? I had such self-control, I knew what I was doing with my life, where I was going, everything had been going my way. Now I have understood. I cannot keep smiling eternally. I cannot continue getting up after someone has kicked me down. “I can live through anything” I repeat to myself, a mantra to live by. But it doesn’t work that way. I can live through anything, but only with help. As confident as I look, I cannot do it all by myself. I need to think that someone cares, even though it may not be so.

 

But please, keep staring right through me, carry on avoiding my troubled gaze, do not make yourself guilty of showing feelings. Maybe, one day, I'll truly become transparent and no one will notice. And the day when I have had enough, when I finally erupt; the day where I let out all the anger and hurt that has been simmering inside me, that day, you'll know all the pain I've been through, and then perhaps you'll finally understand what a difference you could have made. I ache every time I see you exuberantly greet your friends yet let my hello go ignored. Am I so insignificant? Am I truly non-existent? You, as an individual could have made just the slightest difference, you could have changed the course of a life and have saved a lost person from their auto-destructive behaviour. You could have smiled at me instead of just looking away, you could have answered when I wished you a good morning. You could have bitten back those venomous words that danced on the tip of your tongue and have thought that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t the only one having a bad day. Maybe one day you’ll chose to open your eyes and truly see the people who need you. When you do, your life will have been worth living. I wish you the best of luck.