By Sophia Santoso, Staff Writer
For what feels like hours, I stare up at the ceiling of my bedroom. A collection of thoughts begin to unravel in my mind, each one louder than the next, all of them seeming to ask the same questions: Why? Why do I feel so lonely? Why do I feel so insecure? Why can’t I ignore little things? Why do I have school tomorrow? My breathing elevates as I attempt to push the thoughts out of my mind. Do my friends feel this way too? Sometime during the night, I fall asleep.
I find myself staring up at my history teacher, struggling to listen and comprehend the words that leave his mouth. The voices in my mind clamor endlessly, each yearning to be heard until they drown out his voice. You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re worthless.
I can’t hear. Not with the vanquishing thoughts that fill every part of my brain and my eyes with tears. I aggressively wipe them away, forcing myself to destroy the devil in my head. His voices subside as he moves from my mind and into my eyes. A part of him rolls down my cheek and I scan the room to make sure nobody has noticed. I lock eyes with my friend, who flashes her sweet smile that I know is mine only. The devil leaves my vision, and tangles my thoughts with his fingers until my head throbs with pain. Under my roaring thoughts, I can hear the pounding of my heart.
He whispers in my head, “What would she think of you now?”
So I smile back at my friend.
I scream at the devil in my mind, asking him Why, why me? I’m so tired. Tired of pretending my life is perfect. Tired of being someone I’m not. Tired of hiding my worries from everyone. For a moment I see him, a darkness creeping into my mind. What is that I see in his eyes? Sympathy? Without waiting for his response, I blink him away furiously, allowing his voice to leave my head and the pool he filled to exit my eyes.
When I catch her eye again, she smiles. This time, I don’t smile back.
I’m so tired, I whisper to the tears that drench my paper and smudge the ink. Tired of the same, innate reply of “good,” after someone asks, “How are you?” knowing that it’s not the truth. I stare down at my lap, reminding myself that others go through the same. Across the classroom, my friend fixes her attention on the teacher, whose patent voice is replaced by arbitrary laughter. An innocent, genuine, elated laugh that falls gentle like the leaves that fall in autumn— a laugh so unusually out of place that I flinch. As the laughter grows insistent, I realize that it doesn’t emerge from my teacher.
Then suddenly I’m floating, being lifted higher and higher into a new view of my life. A blurry image of a grassy field enters my vision. Laughter fills the air as I watch myself stroll across campus with my friend, who tells me something with her radiant and definite smile. I attempt to decipher what she says by watching her mouth the words.
What is she saying?
Then I hear it, and the convinced tone of her voice almost induces me.
“You’re so perfect.”
Perfection. I almost laugh out loud.
But there’s so much you don’t know, my friend.
The world surrounding me seems to be spinning, leaving me back into the place where I belong, like a piece of a puzzle that was missing. I stare up to find myself face to face with my history teacher. He uses his hands to emphasize something, his passion growing and growing. I still can’t hear him. I stare around at my classmates, absorbing the stress, the insecurities, the restrained emotions that lie within all of us: the struggle of striving for a perfect life.
But is perfect reachable?
The thought fades away as the bell rings, and I wipe the tears off of my desk with my sleeve.