I had just exited the restroom when the clamoring voices of several young children filled my ears. There were four of them. They ran wildly, everywhere. I scanned the area, certainly a parent is nearby; surely they cannot be just unattended like this…

Then I saw her. She weakly reached out toward her rambunctious brood, mumbling softly and incoherently. In a tattered carrier strapped to her chest, a red-faced infant wailed. The woman had a haggard look about her and dark smudges beneath her eyes. Greasy hair kept falling in her face.

Then a forlorn, guttural noise escaped her mouth. She suddenly fell back against a nearby wall and slowly slid down to the floor. She began to weep loudly. Her sobs and howls joined along with the squalling infant on her chest. She and her baby became a symphony of human misery.

She was partially blocking the walkway. A few onlookers spoke harshly to her as they stepped over her legs:

“Don’t breed ‘em if you ain’t gonna take care of ’em!”

“Ever heard of birth control?”

“Oh, give me a break, lady…”

Fifteen-year-old me looked around.

Someone should help her…

I looked around awkwardly for an adult to offer aid. I found not one friendly face, only strangers’ expressions of shock and disgust or averted gazes.

I’m just a kid. I don’t know what to do.

Maybe she was a single mom… Maybe she was simply overwhelmed… Maybe she was suffering from postpartum depression. I will never know exactly what was happening with her that day. My point is, it doesn’t matter the circumstance. I had a chance to be a comfort and blessing to a stranger and I opted out.

This is where my shame lies: my inaction. Even if I was unsure what practical help I could offer, I could have (at the very least) sat there on the floor with her. I could have let a hurting person know they were not alone on a bad day. But I chose to turn and walk away, with an empty prayer on my lips that help may soon find her.

I could have been her help, her comfort, her answered prayer… but I walked away.

I will carry this shame with me always.

Oop. Prose deleted the start of this. Damn. The audacity. Doesn't matter, tho, I'll give you the highlight of the paragraph I totally do not remember. Something awkward something something..

Anyway... Where to start. Not an easy question because what I'm gonna talk about is sort of specific? And sort of... Wrong? Oh, no, very wrong. Very, very wrong. I'd say I'm not a bad person... But I'm not exactly a good one either. Minimum level decent on the outside, I exist and I try not to hurt people and I try not to hurt myself these days, too.

I'm... Stalling. Okay, then. I wanted to talk about fear, at first. Because I am ashamed of how afraid I have been all my life. There's tons of stuff over the years of being a people pleaser... Not my fondest memories. But I guess the difference is that I'm not as ashamed of my fear because I do not hide it as much. Of course, I try to. But when it wants to come out of me, I don't often stop it. I don't pretend it doesn't exist so I feel less shitty about myself. It's always been there.

But I have layers. I'm still stalling. I'm still stalling. It's not a criminal thing, per say. I'd never do it. I'd never actually do it. In fact, if you knew me, you would never think I'd have that little thing anywhere in me. Except you'd seen me try to choke my sister when we were kids. Or that one time I threw something at my brother, hoping to cause as much damage as humanly possible.

I think the thing inside me that scares me... More than my fear of people and my fear of the future... I often fear myself. What I have dreamt of. It's a simple thing to talk about, really. I'm still stalling. I shouldn't have read the other post. But I did and it makes me feel... Worse? But you asked. And hey, since no one here knows me, since the worst that could happen is being further shamed, I guess I can try to talk about this thing that's lived in my head all my life.

I am not all softness. In truth, I don't know how much of that softness has been pushed to the front of me to prevent my otherness from popping up. Truthfully, I am also a violent creature. Warriors, soldiers, kings...

I've not only dreamt of my death.

I've dreamt of taking people with me? If that makes sense?

I don't want to make it poetic. I hardly want to explain it. I'm trying but it's hard because I've worked very hard to suppress this part over time. I pushed the violence into my fingertips sometimes, hurt myself to prevent the desire to do much worse to the person that wronged me. A desire only. A thought only. But one that gave me some relief when I was younger. Desire to cause harm.

I could tell you about the days I would imagine killing my schoolmates to pass the time in secondary school. I could tell you about that one time I "accidentally" murdered my Economics teacher in my mind, filled by a sudden anger I couldn't control over whatever stupid thing she said and being unable to look her in the eye since. I could tell you about throwing my father off a building in my head. Torturing this one girl in a silent vision. Even as I write this, I feel a peculiar kind of pain in my chest, telling me to seriously shut the fuck up. That thing in me has long been hidden. Talking about it is a general no-no.

I think it's my brain making up for how powerless I've felt all my life. Because I have. By my own hand, I deny myself the littlest decency. And something cracks a little more. So yes. When I watch shows like Hannibal or read a book like Native Son, that shit makes me feel something. When I witnessed Rhys Montrose on YOU, it felt like a bit of representation for my own thoughts. And I wondered and wondered and wondered...

I don't think I do want to kill anyone. I haven't got the patience or energy, I hardly give enough of a shit to get up in the morning. Murder is actually hard work. But I think the importance of my murder-loving side is to be a balance to that feeling. That I am nothing, that I am no one, that the world can walk over me a million times and I would smile and say thank you.

I recently wrote a seriously thorough murder fantasy-esque post on Prose about a certain roommate of mine, from the past. One that... Well, not to get into detail but she broke me even more. Amplified my discomfort around people with such tragic beauty. You see, after everything went down, I had to live with her for about a month. I had to have exams. I had to go to class and bathe like people do, I suppose. And I did. And I spent the entire time with her pretending that I felt nothing... But... Gratitude? I put a smile on my face and I let them do... Whatever they wanted because hey, fear.

Be afraid. You're supposed to be weak and meek and quiet and afraid; do that. Show that. You aren't allowed more than that.

I think deep down, I was scared to show my rage that day. It comes out in little bursts. I learnt, that day, that I would rather keep it caged than protect myself from actual genuine danger. That I would rather make the world an unsafe place for myself than risk letting that beast in me out. Risk showing that I, indeed, am capable of a violence beyond what I know. That I can hurt and I want to, sometimes. There is danger in my bones and I preferred to keep the mask of decent, good human than keep her from shattering me.

And it's been a year, now, since then. Thought I was over it and then I wrote that one post. It's funny how hidden I keep this feeling. It's funny how most of my self harm over the years was me needing a place to put the burning tar dripping down my stomach and not knowing where else to let it go. And it's stupid. And it's sad. And my vileness is a part of me that I am yet to accept.

I don't know if other people feel like this. I guess it's why I understood the Joker, in some way. Why I often relate to villains. I can understand that strange craving to let yourself go in such a dangerous, depraved way. It is such a small but important piece of me. I think if I listened to it and shook its hand, perhaps my violence and anger could be more than just a thing of shame. Perhaps they have better functions than sitting at the bottom of me like a quiet poison. But I don't really know what to... Do with it? Except... Keep it silent?

I wish I had lashed out that day. I should have. I've had multiple panic attacks since. I've spoken to family and had them... Well. Put it down as nothing much, let's leave it at that. I've done everything to brush it off, to make it nothing. And still, the anger remains, somewhere. Whenever I write about it, it still feels so foreign. I know it when I feel it but otherwise, it's so... Damn... Quiet. Safely shackled where it can't hurt anybody but me, I guess.

I was worried what would come next. Imagine. I had the power to save myself. I could have run away. I could have pushed her back. I could have screamed. Instead, I... Repressed. Instead, I went into a little corner of my mind and turned myself into that mask again, that ever-agreeable puppet robot with no feelings, only a "yes ma'am whatever you want can-do" fucking attitude. And I did it for someone who meant nothing to me. Because I worried about what my violence might do if it finally got to be free. If I finally let it drop from my fingertips and leak out of my skin through a more physical way than writing about it.

I began this silly little essay afraid of what people would think. I end it... Reminiscing. Feeling it. It's weird how I personify my emotions, sometimes. My fear likes to live in my chest, the most. Sometimes it enjoys spreading to my hands, just for the fun of having me shake. My need for solace is a pounding in my head when the rest of humanity gets too loud for me to exist among them, anymore.

My anger is deep in my stomach, somewhere. Forever lurking. If I hadn't taught myself that it was something to be ashamed of, I would have hurt her that day. I would've gotten ahead of myself and been lost to the feeling. I would have felt alive instead of being killed. I wouldn't have let myself be so fucking powerless. It's the most powerless I've ever felt. I was truly reduced to nothing. I'd always been scared of being so drowned in that feeling of utter worthlessness but my imagination never taught me what it would be like. Regret tells me I should have let it out. As does shame, the same fool that tells me keeping it in was probably the best choice.

I don't know what to believe. I don't know anymore if I should be ashamed of something that has spent its entire lifetime with me trying to make me feel better, as misguided as it... Usually is. I used to hate myself so much for existing. Hate it. In the tar, I tremble, I sink, I drown. And I love and hate the feeling a little too much.

I don't know what I've written or why I wrote so damn much and I guess I'm sorry but I guess I'm really not? It's itching at me again. I can feel it. That damn memory triggers so many of my emotions all at once, it's kind of incredible, really. Weak, dangerous, who cares? I'd rather turn my fists to my own chest than show anyone that thing. So it's fine. It'll die with me. But when it wants to rip out, if there's good reason, perhaps I'll let it next time. Self-preservation takes some head-bashing sometimes, I think.

Okay... That's all, folks. Judge me, relate, be confused... Feel as you wish. This was a lot more pouring than I expected. Don't know whether to be concerned or pleased that at least some of the black has been scooped up, splattered on "paper" far from the home it has carved for itself inside me. I am fucking exhausted, now. I feel delightfully ill from this level of oversharing, my forehead feels hot heh. Goodbye, stranger. I could pretend that this wasn't true, I could delete this before any random eyes descended and took a glance at this strange, usually buried piece of my soul.

Oh well. I am one self-revolved delusional fuck to think any of what I'm saying means anything at all to anyone other than me but

I am who I am.

And that won't ever go away. Don't even think I want us to, anymore.

We're stuck together till death do us part, me and myself. Might as well... Shrug and vibe with it, I guess.

Ps. Swearing is the best, sometimes. Je t'aime, merde.

So this is where the years wind up? This is where it ends?

The man crouched on the stool atop the stage touches the strings with delicate if resilient fingers, but the tattered Marshall on which his boot rests beside him doesn't care. The Marshall likes it loud, just as the Gibson connected to the amp does, and just as the old rocker who cradles the classic guitar to his breast does. And just like the other two, the aged amp still works fine, which it proves by ejecting the single chord through the “business end” of it’s speaker like a well-tuned cannon’s blast. The lonely chord reverberates through the practically empty room, an amplified clarion call of Axeman, Gibson and Marshall, but the few paired-up people in the bar are inattentive, all but one. In the harsh glow of the footlights his fingerprints and sweat streaks besmudge the guitar’s fire-burst design, soiling it, the same as the man’s blue jeans are soiled, and the boots beneath them. His hair is long and unwashed, and his beard, and his shirt tails hang too long as well, (the tails left untucked so as to hide the unwelcomed paunch above his biker belt). The man appears very comfortable in his place upon the stage, comfortable being spotlighted in the skuzziness surrounding him, glowing in the raunchy smells and dim lights made dimmer still through his dark glasses, and through his hazy, three-quarters of the way there drunk.

He steals a moment to read the room. He could take that single chord he’d opened with in a myriad of directions. His catalog is extensive, overflowing with both self-written and cover songs, but he waits before continuing, counting heads. He’d drawn seven people. Seven. Not so long ago he’d drawn 17 thousand. Or maybe it was “so long ago,” considering how the world had changed in that seemingly short amount of time? In any event, this must be where it all really ends, he thinks, all of the rehearsing, and travelling, and playing. He is down to an audience of seven.

Hidden behind the glasses his eyes pick out the only one in the tiny audience who is paying attention. He begins to play nothing in particular to that one, just old finger exercises he’d invented long ago when learning to play, tricks designed to impress, but “nothings” which also allowed him the freedom to take flight in a million different directions, just as the single chord had. It is an old game to him, showing out, a game he plays very well.

She is young, the one paying attention; dark eyed and olive skinned. Big, frizzy hair and sandaled feet stick out either end of a long, shapeless, hippy-looking dress. He can imagine her with actual flowers in her hair, can remember other girls just like her, in other times. She is the sort he used to easily have. He wonders if he still can. Looking at her, he decides on an old song, but a goodie; a song that the girl might even have heard before, written by his favorite songster, way back when. Even if the songs are dated, you can never go wrong playing Kris. Once the song is decided the man in the spotlights begins searching for a jumping off spot from his riffs and rips. Finding one, his transition is seamless into a finger-picked intro in the key of E.

He has chosen the song for her because she has reminded him of it, she has the “look” of it, so he is disappointed when she throws back her drink and stands, but she doesn’t leave, as he half expects her to. On the contrary, she makes her way over to the one step stage, climbs aboard, and without asking for permission pulls the microphone from it’s chrome stand. Intrigued and up for anything, the man slides into the opening chord, nodding her along with him into the song.

She must be Capricorn, he thinks. Her voice is deep, sultry, much smoother than Janice’s, reminding him for some reason of silent snowflakes touching down in a wooded, gray, and wintry world. She keeps it simple, which he appreciates, singing the song as it is meant to be sung, though her lyrics are not quite right;

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for the trains

I’s feeling nearly faded as my jeans

Bobby thumbed a diesel down, just before it rains

It rode us all the way to New Orleans

She is good, so he tones and tunes down, allowing her room to work.

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose

And nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain‘t free

He joins in where she needs a push, his harmony mixing nicely and naturally with her melody, even though his voice is unamplified. His fingers fill in the breaks, running free at the song’s high point while she lays low, a soft and mournful hum in contrast to the bedlam which Janice’s crescendoes had made famous at this point in the song;

La la la, la da la da, la dee la dee la dee la…

His smile remains inside. An experienced poker player, he knows when to bluff. Hers is on the outside, where he can see it, glowing brightly as the song nears it’s end. They have found something, this old man and this girl; a connection that only music or lovemaking can allow two strangers to share. He wonders if one might lead to the other?

When the final notes tinkle from the amp, in that briefest of moments before the spatter of unexpected applause, while respectful silence still reigns supreme, the two of them share a look, both seeing something fascinating in the other, and wondering “what could have been?” The startled few at their seats, they who have only now realized that they had just unwittingly witnessed one of those special, unforgettable moments in life that are oh-so difficultly found, rise and begin to clap. As she hands him back his microphone he notices her wetted cheek, and longs to swipe it away with a hopeful thumb.

“Thank you, Dad. I‘ve always wanted to sing that with you.”

With that she walks away, leaving him suddenly older, sober, and even more alone.

“Dad?”

Can this be where the year's wind up? Is this where it all ends?

Not on your fuckin’ life, it’s not. The guitar man lovingly lays his smudged instrument down atop the well-travelled amp and leaps a little too exuberantly from the one step stage, so that he is forced to limp hastily through the maze of tables in his pursuit...

(For my friends, TheEnigmas... "words, words, words of shame.")

What's my shame? I just wrote a paragraph and deleted it. Someone else on this thread, for this challenge, wrote that Prose deleted their first paragraph by accident. Oops - I just did, on purpose.

What's my shame? I am ashamed that my biggest desire is to go to an open mic and read aloud my writing. That I could possibly fathom, in any planetary system, that my writing is on par with other writers, that what I have to say matters.

Here's what happens:

I take that insecurity and put it in a glass jar. My writing is inside that glass jar, and the person I think of as my "writing self" is in there too, unaware that their words are transparent for everyone to see. Because for me, my "writing self", I am talking into a void, potentially a void where someone will see me and understand me, and relate to me, but a VOID. The internet is a void. I write posts about my trauma and don't think anyone is going to know, at the end of the day, what my name is on my driver's license - and be able to link that name back to me, the "writing self" me.

I'm hoping to dear god no one on here knows me personally.

Just like today, at the brewery, when the bartender said he "definitely knows me" from another bar he works at, and I literally could not remember seeing him once, ever. This is my terror: that I will be recognized as the name on my driver's license in a situation where *I actually want my trauma to remain anonymous*.

This, ultimately, is why I don't do open mics: because someone always has a camera, and it's always turned on to video, and I'm going to be somewhere on social media, whining about my trauma, when I had hoped to be remain mysterious, someone who doesn't share my legal name. I don't want to be OUT THERE. When I can be HERE. Anonymous and contained.

So how is this "my shame"? Sometimes I get published and become horrified when it becomes clear that - what? omg - MY name was published alongside what I wrote. Like, no no no. Because like in my real life, where I'm the girl who wears the sweatpants and no makeup to the store, and there, and at the end of the day, I don't want to be recognized as The Girl Who Has Trauma. I'm just here for eggs and milk, thanksverymuchandhaveagooddayma'am. But I do want to be seen as who I "really am" on this writing platform. I do want to be seen as my "writing self." Just don't, like that bartender, say my legal name out loud to me in real life.

Because I will cower, and I will run.

You say that you loved me,

but your absence spoke loudly.

It's hard to comprehend

how you didn't stand proudly.

When I made my life shine,

you kept your distance still.

When my life imploded,

you left a hole to be filled.

I needed your counsel,

but mostly, I needed you.

I needed your presence,

to help me make it through.

Whatever your reasons,

they died along with you.

No hope now for some day

to be good enough for you.

You buried your father

with the same realization.

Now I carry the burden,

the undeserved shame

Of knowing my father

did not really want me;

No other conclusion

your absence has taught me.

Shame. I used to recoil from ever uttering the word. I didn't want to read about it, let alone talk about it. I mean... What am I ashamed of? Me? Pft, nothing.

I would go to such extremes to seem not ashamed.

But in the end you have to confront the truth. And stop stalling. Which I should do, right about... Now. I'm still avoiding it lol and need to just get to the point already.

I am ashamed of myself. There. I said it. I'm ashamed of my identity. How I love the wrong kind of people, people who walk all over me, and smile and laugh and welcome them. "Come, join me in my self-flagellation! Let's rewrite my identity! Oh, you don't like this part of me? Let me remove it for you. There you go, all yours, packed and ready to go!"

I am ashamed of sanding myself, to appear smooth and non-embarassing. "Sadness? No, I am never sad. You don't have to worry about me. Anxiety? Nope, I am just hungry and dizzy and that makes me shake. No need to give my emotional burden to you, do I?"

I am ashamed of having those emotions. Fear, anxiety, so much fear. And for what? Being unlovable? Ending up alone? Honey, you already are! In your mind you are so alone. So unlovable. You don't even love yourself! Isn't it why you carve out those emotions on your body? To prove to yourself you are human, that you feel pain, you feel something.

I am ashamed of having those emotions. Fear, anxiety, so much fear. And for what? Being unlovable? Ending up alone? Honey, you already are! In your mind you are so alone. So unlovable. You don't even love yourself! Isn't it why you carve out those emotions on your body? To prove to yourself you are human, that you feel pain, you feel something.

You are human. Human's are social animals. Human's deserve love and friendship and support. Do you deserve love and friendship and support? Stop flinching and fucking look in the mirror. Do you see a lovable human being or do you see someone who has to be perfect and useful and good just to be tolerated, and maybe fed scraps of attention to?

I am ashamed of not speaking up. You know what I'm talking about. For enduring it, staying silent and even accepting it.

Now you are broken, no good, nonfeeling, shaking-tremoring at the slightest provokation, stupid mess. And I am ashamed of you. Look what you did to yourself once I handed over the reigns to you.

I'm ashamed of having those scars that I inflicted. But I don't get to be ashamed of something that I did to myself. So I'm ashamed of ever being discovered for it, having to justify and placate.

I am ashamed that I cry for even a speck of kindness shown, a little ray of humanity, a piece of love and a bite of attention given . Which obviously makes people recoil immediately, because who does that?

I'm ashamed of so much more. I am ashamed that I am ashamed. And that I don't say that I am ashamed when I feel ashamed.