Masks
The sadness is crushing my heart.
Why did we have to leave? Leave the safe comforts of our home. Our real home. Not this shell of a house with no laughter to fill it. Why did we have to come here? This terrible desert where everyone wears a mask. A mask of lies and deception. But I don't wear a mask, so they see my face. They see my face and cringe, thinking it's a mask. They think I'm trying to play tough, I'm marked dangerous. So I'm alone. I'm alone in an ocean of hollow people who lie. They lie telling everyone I'm righteous, I'm perfect. But the words are hollow. While they are singing praise to they're parents, they snickering with they're friends over some dirty joke. But I don't snicker. Because under those white, sterile masks their face is rotten. From lack of sun.
Except for the few. The few who really are those angles, those kind selfless people. But those sheltered people cower from fire. They cower from me because I am dangerous, I don't dance on my tippy toes around people glass feeling. Because I'm not that person who fawns over they're "friends" every whim so they like them. You don't get anywhere without risks. This one backfired.
So what now? I'm the strange kid, marked dangerous. They don't see me at school, because I don't go there. I school at home. I'm the strange kid. The kid to avoid. I answer all the questions so I'm branded as a suck up. But I glower at the teacher when I think no one looks so I'm branded as a trouble maker. But what they don't get is the sly comments the teacher says. They only see her candy and age, so she's a sweet old grandma. They think I just talk, but I also listen. I can hear her aggressive tone when she "corrects" me. But I have to say she's wrong. She thinks integrity is connection.
But I have news for her, she's wrong. Integrity is having the guts and the moral to bear the treatment. To have the strength to ignore their whispers and snickers behind hands. To tell myself it'll all be over soon, that I can go home. But I can't. Because homes is miles away. Sometimes I think to myself that this story won't have a happy ending. That'll end with people poking me, and tearing out the pages of the stories I write because they don't like them. But she thinks integrity means connection. I don't know if her hearing bad or what but if it is... then I have none. No integrity. I am alone on a isolated island. While all around me people laugh and point as I starve. I am alone, a reject, outcast, useless. Every single day is a battle, and I'm losing the war. But I keep on fighting and pray they don't see the hurt. I guess I'm wearing a mask too now.