seduction and other things i will never succeed in.

drunk on tears and snot, this might be the truest thing i will ever write.

All my life I've been told that I will succeed. It's now a litany against all my exams, a constant stream of iwillsucceediwillsucceediwillsucceed. And I have, so far. Every new day starts like a misstep, I might fall or I might not. And i have not fallen yet, but the feeling persists. Like rain against a broken roof, my heart beats when I wake up, and when I sleep, I wonder if the new day brings a weaker me, where somebody else takes my place.

Afraid - The Neighbourhood

But the question begs to be asked, where will I succeed? Drooling over my maths homework, or hair sticking to a colourful canvas. It feels like a uquiz, ones that told me I was loved but scary, broken but persisting. Ones that compared me a forest forgot to mention one thing, when my trees break down, I cannot grow back. The ones that called me a poet escaped the notion that I would rather fight to death than show my mother my words.

My heart bellies out when I talk to a crush. Swelling into a grotesque monster, I have never claimed to be beautiful, neither inside nor out. I know he'd rather talk to my friend, but I am the only one who solved the question. He makes me laugh once, and I immediately know he'd rather see me scowl, I have never claimed to be beautiful while happy. Success is something I'm accustomed to, but from my 6th birthday I stopped viewing beauty as a competition. I watch him make others laugh like a flick of the wrist, and I see he'd rather tear me to pieces than hear me snort. I don't have a lovely laugh, I am void of loveliness and I'm learning to be proud of it. No one has ever looked at me like that, I am neither the first nor the thousandth person to pop up in a person’s mind when they're asked to choose someone. I wish my heart stops tittering condescendingly when no one calls my name. I hope my phone stops being as silent as dead birds near water. I hope loneliness becomes a friend one day, because it will never go back. I hope I stop wishing for someone to call me kaadhal, because I can spend my prayers on important things.

"The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Laura Makabresku

I am learning that success doesn't always taste sweet, and it will never taste like the first time I messed up making a sweet. There my mother was, right behind me with a teasing smile and a way to make it all better. Failure was whispered like a sweet, lovely word, but it didn't stay that way. I see the fallen looks my father sends my way sometimes, there is always something wrong. Be it my weight or height, or the way I'm too loud or too quiet. I get angry quickly, and that's why they don't say it anymore. It feels like my parents are afraid of me sometimes, like there is a rage boiling deep beneath me, and I will burn the world down with it. I'm too afraid to do that, too afraid of consequences to sacrifice even a pawn in chess. I'll never succeed in learning to overcome failing, and that is the one failure I can never live down.

I lost my best friend when I was six. Car accident. And I have lost every best friend since then. Playing it safe never helps, and people always leave each other. If I never call someone first, it's not because im uninterested, I’m too scared. A rose loses it's thorn everytime I reach out first, and for reasons unknown to psychologists, all my roses are prickly and my hands are bleeding and I think my heart might be too.

The epilouge to my life will not paint a picture at all. For what have I achieved, and what will I achieve? And even if I do, who will be around till then, to honour a well meaning loner who hates more than she loves, who pushes all the doors in her life? I wonder if I will succeed in pushing myself away one day.