Jaded Positivity

picture is from here

Listen to comrade by Volcano Choir, All Tiny Creatures Remix while reading this post. Trust me on this.

I’m not here to be your friend. I’m not here to be the love of your life. I’m not here so that you have a shoulder to cry on. I’m not here for you. I am here for some kind of salvation. I’m here to feel the salt from the air settle on my skin. I am here to take in that ocean breeze, to inhale it and exhale it. I’m here to light a fire that spreads wherever I have let the gasoline drip. I’m here to ignite that path. I am here to close my eyes and feel the air on my face, rippling the sides of my mouth gently as I stick my head out of the fast moving truck. I am here to look out of that truck and up at the tall fir trees, and the sunlight being filtered through them and falling onto the ground as spots of light. I am here to run barefoot up the steep hill, to reach the top to the cliff, to watch the sunset from there as I pant and pant. I am here to jump from that cliff, into the pristine, blue water underneath me. I am here to be swallowed by the earth.

I can’t walk straight. The soles of my feet always bend in an awkward way. My nails are always small, nibbled on. I breathe abnormally. I breathe short, loud breaths, that sound like I’m constantly being suffocated. Every time I get scolded I keep a poker face, and instead of boiling with rage and rolling my eyes, I go to a quiet corner and break down. I fall to the floor and cry and cry.

I seem weak. But in fact I am warrior.

I am a warrior who has blisters on her fingers and small scars all over her back. They trace like constellations on skin. I am a warrior who has endured pain, great pain. A warrior who has her heart ripped out. A warrior who swam willingly in a black pool, and came out drained. But I did it. I did it all. And I lost all feelings of comfort.

I braided my own hair and made my own food and protected myself. I walked alone. I didn’t have an army to stand with me, I had my self. People I had comforted during their time of grief, left. They kept waving and smiling while I was stuck in a glass box that was slowly filling with water. They kept waving and smiling and becoming more distant. Fading away, and as soon as the last smiling face faded away I realized I needed to break out. I pounded the glass again and again, with more ferocity than the last time, until at last I shattered the glass. I shattered it and millions of glittering glass shards flew and water gushed out from my former torture chamber. I became free, and I became my very own savior. My very own army.  

So no, the weak, deranged, gasping girl does not need you. And neither does she need to be there for you as a friend, a lover or a shoulder to cry on. Go find someone else, because now, my only friend is me. My only shoulder to cry on is me. And my only love is me. It’s time to take care of myself and fall in love with myself and do what my soul lusts to do. It’ time for me to live that wanderer’s life, it’s time for me to jump and be swallowed by the crystal clear seas, to light that blazing fire and let that gasoline spread. Jaded positivity.