more refractions of self ...

Today has been odd and nauseating, my usual state of half awake pendulating more towards sleep. 

Like I'd expected, my decline is only noticeable acutely, when it strikes me I cannot get out of bed even with a looming midterm and I do not feel real. I do not feel anything, and yet I feel it so deeply it stings my eyes if I think about it for too long. 

 In the archives I sat in the dark despite the monitors strain on my eyes. I scrolled through pages and pages of people caught in both beautiful moments of candidness and pose. What would life be like if I were not unafraid of a lens, I don't know what it's like to not appear distorted and strange like an apparition on film. Rich benefactors, old men with crisp veneers. I wondered what it would be like to be afforded with such normalcy, to be allowed to grow old and fat and tanned without ever questioning my place in the world. Or like one of their wives or daughters.  A manicured woman with unwavering undeniability of her beauty, one who never had been posed the question "are you sure he was looking at you?",or  looked at with pity or scorn for having a crush,  who's main contention in her appearance was how freckled she'd gotten in the sun. 

Such empty rumination often haunts me, pointless as it is to wish I'd had the unearned right to exist without question or justification In my own skin. It's hollow. I would still be the same person underneath, even if I had taken on a more becoming mortal guise. There are painful moments where I wish I could change everything about myself to spite the pity, the overshadowing and invisibility. To never feel like the invisible presence in a room ever again.  But I look in the mirror and it's apparent that even as I wither, I cannot change my face, the essence of what I hate is bone deep, the shape of my eyes and the curve of my jaw. 

I"ve always been so needlessly careful and abiding, considerate in the face of indifference. It's a terrible thing to realize it never really mattered what you did, there was no recognition accompanying surveillance,  you were just closely watched. The looming hand of punishment invisible to my peers, looming over me. 

 I feel the strange feelings, remnants of a dream I don't remember and they hold comforts I cannot describe, a warm feeling in the cold, the sense that it is evening, the chord of some gothic song striking through me in a way that inspired lighting with darkened skies but no rain. Impending excitement from indoors, infront of a tv, a distinc smell. Today is a strange day and I am not certain whether I've left a part of myself in the world of dream or whether I simply carry it with me in waking.  Am I not completely here or have I brought something back with me? I uploaded my files like I were in some cyberpunk novel instead of a college student before amusedly noting the escapist sentiment and slinging on my leather jacket as I pressed log out. 

The melancholic crooning I broadcasted to myself when I slipped on my headphones after grabbing a coffee comforted me in a strange romantic way. 'no wonder I'm so fucking depressed', I'd remarked to myself sardonically. Not that anyone else could tell by looking at me. I saw my reflection in the window of a shop, spotting an old sci-fi novel with Frankenstein on the front.          I don't have someone who's arms I can cry in without it being embarrassing, something I often attribute to my appearance. Cute, maybe. But never beautiful. Not enough to be seen or held.               My emphasis may be undue, magnified despite its truth. But I felt it even as I looked away from the vague impression I left in the glass. I thought of how different I might seem to others, my burdens being completely my own to bear. Quiet, reserved and stoic to strangers. Dispositionally sunny and jestful amongst friends. Collected. There are contradictions within me I don't even understand myself. A duality that is more like a sea of gray. Vulnerable, yet guarded. 

"You seem to be rather reserved, yet you can rather easily form a friendship with someone new if you can find a common interest. You also seem to be very caring towards not only those who are close around you, but those who may have issues that you can’t see on a surface level."

 Can I resent solitude when I banish myself to exile so willingly? I am not verres fleeing the senate yet I retreat as though gravely threatened. Yet I find myself so similar to the girl I was; someone who resented that I had not found someone willing to see past the cracks, someone who understood me deeply in the same way I understood others, the effort of perception and comfort something not expended on me unless I was in the presence of someone deeply insightful, or in the rare instance someone noticed me enough to look at me in such a way like one might gaze through a prism.