She is Me

It feels like there’s dozens of me in my head, each one fighting for the front row seat to the hell that is my life. If someone asked me to describe it for them, I’d ask them what they’re talking about, wonder briefly why they think there’s something going wrong inside my head, why they believe that there’s an issue to begin with. Then I’d look in the mirror, see the circles under my eyes and realize they might be right ot question how strange I’d been acting for who knows how long. But the thought would be fleeting and disappear before any real depth can be probed. When they bring it up again, the realization will strike once more, but it’ll be laughed off – they think I need help, but what good is help if no one can give me a solid plan?

No, their words and ideas do not help because all they would give me is vague advice and stupid hints. I want a damn plan, something that can be a guideline but still has explicit directions if I ever need them. Things like ‘be honest’ or ‘make the right decision’ do not help, believe it or not. If anything, they’re the most generic crap people say just so they don’t have to take the chance of hurting someone or saying something wrong.

Way to go, people.

So now there’s a million people in my head trying to tell me one thing or another and it’s starting to hurt and no matter who I ask or turn to, no one has anything useful! I’m not crazy or insane and I don’t need psycho pills. I need the little devil-winged brat to shut up and stop talking about sex positions. The retarded angel needs to stop preaching about diapers and the cop in the corner needs to stop playing with the stupid bag of heroine! But no matter how I try to change the thoughts, shift the perspectives, none of them will go away, leave me in peace, stop ruining my world. My inner world, that is.

What can a girl do about a large group of things in her head when there’s no simple solution? Well, my answer came with a very interesting hedonistic spell- Not! My answer came with the very simple idea that one of the very few things in my head offered. Block the rest of the real world out and focus on fixing my own. Because what’s the point of interacting with a stable world when the unstable can barely comprehend it? It’s impossible for me to understand why someone would dress up as a clown to harass their ex or why someone would marry a person they had not seen for twenty years, regardless of the length of the later relationship. None of reality makes any sense to me because no matter who says what, it goes in my ear, gets torn to shreds by the things in my brain, then sent out the other like confetti. The worst part? There’s more of them every day.

Since the only use of all this is to play with my own mind, it’s about time to start with the first section – the skyscrapers. Funny enough, they were not there before these things started showing up. When I saw how many of them were there after a rather stressful day and they were bouncing around like mad, I just sort of thought ‘Where did they all come from? Where do they sleep?’ So, high rise apartments and pent houses. Cool, right? Which is a very apt word at the moment considering the weather.

Despite being middle of summer, the skyscrapers are experiencing an impromptu snowfall, complete with freezing breezes and flurries. Shivering at the temperature, I reach out and lift a hoodie from a snow bank next to my sidewalk. After a quick shake, it’s perfectly fine, dry despite the logics of physics, and I slip it over my head. The fabric blocks out the wind, a relief to my near blue skin, and the wind dwindles down to nonexistent. Well, kind of. It’s still blowing, but I don’t really feel it anymore. How strange. But the extreme temperature makes at least a little sense, though not to the extent of turning me blue. Anywhere that lacks vegetation of some kind tends to bend towards extreme temperatures – that’s why places with a lot of concrete are easily freezing over or boiling hot. Vegetation somehow creates a little sphere of regulation that keeps things in a nice, comfortable zone of warmth or cold.

Weird, right?

“I’m always envious of how you do that.”

Laughing lightly at my own thoughts, I barely glance at the woman next to me. “Envious? You can do it, too.”

“No. The rest of us are stuck with logic and actually work with the elements and physics around us. You bend logic.” She grins, poking at my covered arm. “You could probably make this place into a desert if you wanted to.”

“Not really,” I deny quickly, glancing to see if anyone heard her. “I've tried, believe it or not.”

“Right. Your conscience works for both your reality and fantasy, right?”

That’s a new thought to me, but I nod anyway. “Something like that.”

Turning around, I step into the room, feeling heat cover my form. It’s not quite warm enough to have me removing the sweater, but still a good change. She laughs from behind me, letting go of the back of my clothes to walk further in.

“That’s about the only way any of us can move like you do!” A strange look crosses her face as she glances back at me. “We have to be in contact, you know.”

“It’s strange to me. You can’t be any different than me, right?”

She takes a seat on a plush couch, pulling her legs up to her chest. “Are you so sure? We don’t exactly look anything alike.”

That’s definitely true. While she looks beautiful, clean and well-dressed, I’m standing in the entrance to the room with messy hair that’s barely brushed and clothes that are a few years old. It’s not that they’re ratty clothes, or even moth-eaten or damaged with holes – they’re well-worn with obvious wear on them. So they don’t look quite as nice as the skinny jeans, tight tee and bracelets she’s got on. Maybe that’s just something a person like me has to suck up and deal with in their life. It's never that easy to get good stuff, after all.

“I don’t… We may not be the same.” I shrug at the look she gives me. “We can’t be too different. You’re with me, right?”

“True, I guess.”

With a vague smile, she gets up and walks through the wall. Even though I could have swore she just said that all the things I do are impossible for the rest of them. Then again, this is the girl who just said that we’re not that different, either. Maybe we’re just that kind of people? We contradict ourselves regularly both in and out of the mind just for something to do?

Ah well.