[^Journalism](Day 19) For Those Who Have Heart

Switching up formulas for once.

This won't be a journal.

I'm not here to recount my day, which has been utterly insignificant.

I'm here to tell you how the world is going to shit.

How it's all spiraling out of control I never had.

It's never been up to me.

It's always been a question of everything else.

Tonight is the night I speak.

I am a liar. A cheat, a fraud, call me however you like.

I have no personality of my own. To interact with people I just put on a mask, and another, and another. I never remove them.
These masks are nothing but lie. I invent stories and make facts up and it all is meaningless.
It's always been.
And today it is I who has become meaningless.
Fully.

I lived a lonely life. I always did.
All my life, I had to see the few people I got close to leave me eventually.

Some moved out and away. Some I fought with. Most I thought were my friends who actually bullied me. Some I lost by changing schools. Always. Always.
I made a few friends when I arrived in Middle School. And then the classes were mixed up and I lost them again.
I met one of my best friends the next year. He moved out to Switzerland by the end of the year.
I did meet a couple friends before the next two years. Both eventually left me for different schools. I was once more, alone. Surrounded by nothing more than smiling faces that really didn't think much of me at all.
Because smiling's how it's done, right? You smile to look good to people.
I always thought I could be a social kid. Have friends and everything. I took acting classes for 10 years by that time. But not many wanted me around.
All the cool kids had a social life. All the less popular kids were invited to the parties. I was shunned in the worst of ways. I wasn't even trash-talked, just smiled at and ignored, like you say "hello" to a person on the street. I was out of mind as soon as I was out of sight.
Then came highschool.
I met a couple girls I was close to. Lockdown happened. By the time it ended, I had lost contact with the first, and the second left for the other side of the country.
The second and third years of high school were my first years of stable friendships. I was finally part of a group. A close-knit small band that could talk to each other fully. We understood each other. We were all so different yet we saw the world in a way that fits together. Those were the best friendships I ever had. I had found people I could open myself to, somehow. It was far from perfect. We had fights, and we had ups and downs, as all friendships do. But we were all there for one another.
And then, without wishing to antagonize Bowling For Soup, high school did end.

We parted ways.

And there I was in a whole new environment I had to survive in. And as they say, fake it until you make it. And so I did. And I made up things, and I told lies because I wanted to feel some attention. Some eyes on me. Something, just the acknowledgment that I exist. Even if it's negative. Anything. And as much as I learned to survive without it, I cannot anymore. Times made me weaker and weaker and weaker.
I have to have eyes on me. Or I can't live. I am just a stupid, useless attention-seeker who would do anything to get some of that precious attention. And now I realize all of it and I cannot live with it anymore.
Because I am not living. I cannot call that living.

I cannot find much to live for, at this point.
The only thing that keeps me going is the prospect of one day meeting my closest friends, the ones that kept me going through all this time, and whom I only wish to meet before passing. And that is all. That is all there is. That is all there will ever be. I just wish they themselves could meet a better me than I am now.
One that is not as flawed, as repulsive, or as painful to look at as I am every day. I hate every part of this ugly, heavy, disgusting body.

And despite it all, I still cannot cry.

Tears won't come out. Will they ever?

I stand here. Aimlessly.

I have so many things to do. I want to do so many things. When I do something I have to do, every part of me complains because I am not having fun. When I do something I want to do, every part of me complains because I'm not doing what I have to do. I am in so much pain. I can hardly breathe.

I tried to speak out about my cutting to a friend. I brought attention to it in a stupid, obvious, and shitty way, as nice to watch as a fucking clickbait thumbnail. And then it led absolutely nowhere and I gave up. Because, no offense to you, my friend, but I cannot yet. I cannot talk to you. You have so much to deal with, and you have other people that you should give your time and attention to. I am nothing to you. This is not an attack, this is how it should be. I'm just another lost idiot. Nothing. Please, don't care about me. Please. Save me.

I am crying out for help in an endless void that no one but me can hear, and I only feel more pain as I see that nobody can hear it, so I reiterate.

I won't ask them for help directly. I won't ask anyone. I can't. I cannot.

It's just me and my fears. And my pain. And this single razor blade on my desk. And nothing else. Because there is nothing else to it. I won't let a thing out, I won't let a thing in. Sometimes I wish I could. I cannot.

So I stand here. Unable to work without feeling broken from boredom and this nagging feeling of helplessness that keeps telling me "you won't make it out". Unable to enjoy myself because of this other tiny voice that keeps telling me that I am doing nothing but wasting time I could have spent working.

It's all meaningless. I know that I'll fail. So why do I feel so bad about it?

Why am I obscuring my own vision by pretending the world is against me?

Why am I fighting myself? Why am I losing?

It's never meant a thing.

Sorry for dropping some layers of masks.
It's all been for not much anyways.
Whoever reads this probably cares little. And if they do, I'll probably fight until they don't.

I am terrified by the idea of being ignored. But I just wish to be forgotten.

I am terrified by the thought of a nameless death. Yet I keep hurting myself.

I am terrified by all the ways I could go wrong. Yet I keep torturing myself over stupid things on the internet.

Is it too late to act?

Was there even a time to act?

I  trust you fully. You're gonna make it.

Am I?

Goodnight, lone reader. May the rest of this week treat you better than it did today.

We cut without a knife
We live in black and white
You're just a parasite
Now close your eyes and say goodnight - Ready to Die, Andrew W. K.

Laporte, signing off. I wish you the best of lives.