FREAK!

sometimes i wonder how the way i think, the way i view the world, came to be. today i had a realization that is very, very late-coming; it was all an accident. well, it depends on your definition of accidental, but today i realized that "marginalized" is a very, very good word for it.

sorry. i'm not going to talk much about how desperately oppressed i am. that won't do anyone any good. i'm not here to compete. i'm literally bringing up the meaning of the word, because that's far more important; marginalized, it means, basically, peripheral. on the edge. not in the center, not in the context.

i know it's low, r*tarded -- or maybe elitist, or Western? -- to obsess over definitions. sorry, again. there's a reason it's important to me. there's a reason i refer back to myself as late-coming, this word has been around for generations. i am probably not the first to dwell on it.

oh, here's the point, here's my point: i don't think in terms of what i want to do for work, at all, because i'm unhireable in the first place (i've only had one job, with someone who was abnormally lenient with me -- i'm disabled & often absent or late). i know human lives are worth something outside of capitalism because mine has to be or mine isn't worth shit. i don't think in terms of profit, because i could never make any.

a lot of people don't exactly have good odds. i know i'm not the only one who can't engage with systems of oppression as an equal. some people are simply planning to play the cards they've been dealt, and i can't blame them. so i don't.

it's not a privilege to have to work to live, but it is a privilege to be able to -- what happens if you can't? i mean, you literally can't?

don't ask me. i will only be able to tell you what my life has been like, because that's the only life i know well enough to speak on, and that won't do anyone any good. but i did just glimpse it, my life, from the outside, today, out of nowhere, and it's abnormal. i am abnormal. i am a freak.

the way i think, the way i view the world, is for a freak.

i don't mind it. right up until i'm trying to connect with someone i love, and we're talking past each other, and they think i'm looking down on them. no, no. i'm beneath you, or, there is no beneath. i'm in some other world altogether. i'm not from your planet.

i don't see the world the way you do, but i see you. it's a...sentiment, that i intend to get across with nearly every interaction, it is empathy, it is intersection, but sometimes i fail. because i wasn't given a translation booklet for all the different ways multiple people can speak one language. and -- this is something i feel genuine grief over -- i think i desperately need one. i would give anything to connect with everyone i love in a way they understand.

understanding is a precious thing, one i fear i will never be able to afford. i will never stop trying, nonetheless.