It's Who I Am

Every single day of my life I listen to the criticism, the judgement. I listen to all the negative things people say about me behind my back and even to my face. I try not to listen, I try to block them out, to ignore them. For a while it works. I push it all to the back of my mind and pretend for a while that it doesn't hurt. That what they say doesn't, every single time, hit close to home. Their comments always bouncing around on my mind, even with the barrier I've thrown up to try and keep them out. Staying strong and trying my best to be optimistic when things seem bleak, that's what makes up most of what I do on a daily basis. I don't think anyone even notices. After a while though, the wall of emotionless reaction to their bullying starts to wear down. The tears that I've been holding back for so long start threatening to come. From experience I know that the relief is welcomed, the onset of emotions flooding through me and being released by those tears. The tension builds up to the breaking point and only then do I allow myself to cry.

I cannot help who I am. It is not my fault that I am not into the same things you are. Your eyes are cold and merciless as you look down upon me as if I were nothing. Forgive me for being that speck of dirt on your picture perfect life. To you, I'm small and insignificant, a worthless nothing. And yet somehow you find it alright to torment me every day. To put me through my paces and try to make me break. I hold on, only letting go in private where I cannot be seen. It would only give you all the more reason to tease me. How you could find pleasure in my pain, I have no idea.

Maybe one day you'll wake up and realize what you're doing. Maybe you will see that every little word hurts me and maybe it will be enough to stop you. I have my doubts as to whether or not this will ever happen. But some day, it will get to be too much. The constant cycle of holding it in for as long as I can manage and then letting it out in one night with tears that have long since been coming. It cannot go on forever. This I know for fact. As much as I wish I were bulletproof or invincible, I'm not. And someday I will break. There's a delicate balance holding me up right now above a cliff so steep and high that I will not survive the fall should I drop.