i missed the version of me that believed things would work out

the man i became to survive the boy i was

while my mom and i were speaking last night, the conversation took a straight up diversion into the familiar road of another childhood story emphasising my weirdness and amplifying my stupidity.

“crap”, I thought, “i thought we ran dry on those.”

not apparently.

what was obvious was that me plunging my face into a pot filled with mud wasn't close to some of my best work(whatever would that be).

this may have been a story repeated, i dunno. i laugh on the outside, i smile on the inside, but i do feel like killing myself not because im embarrassed, oh no. it's because i often wonder who i was before: beneath all of that distorted version of reality i had before, was there the ability to dream?

what is sincerity? you once were sincere to a dream, sincere to becoming someone, protecting someone. or were you too busy being someone? what’s worse, being unfaithful to that sincerity or the fact that when every single time somebody asks you what your dream was, you either lie about it to prove yourself, or inform everybody of the fact that it because of you that the dream faded. it’s only some nights for you when it feels overwhelming - is it because of the number of dreams that faded or the mistresses you have had?

- from pinterest

do you know yourself, you wonder. did you ever? or it because you have attached yourself to a phase where you just want your identity to completely erased, completely reestablished while parts of you remain same. but that can’t happen. there are too many witnesses in the world, none of them ones you ones you can ever get rid off. yeah you run into dissonance. when you look in the mirror, it isn’t someone you recognise but it is someone still. maybe everybody next to you has a better social life, or one you would like to have, maybe somebody has the financial security you always dreamed of, but you hide that - the confession hidden because you can’t say it.

i still live this. maybe you can’t escape it? here is something i would have said to myself.

if you would have repeated your life, you normally would say to do something different, but what assurances would you ever have that you up better, or even worse?

maybe you’re not meant to escape it. maybe memory isn’t a book to be rewritten, but a wound you’re supposed to trace every time it starts to fade. because the truth is - there was a version of you that really tried. that held onto some blurry version of light. that loved like it mattered. maybe that version didn’t die. maybe it’s just exhausted. and now when people say “you’ve changed,” you nod politely, but you want to scream - do you know what it took to survive?

and it always comes down to that one night. or that one friend. or that one lie you told when all you wanted was to be believed. all of it piled up. now you walk around like a museum of versions. 2015-you still dreaming. 2018-you still in love. 2020-you pretending not to be lonely. and you want to shut the place down, lock the doors. burn it. but you can’t - someone always finds the key. some story your mom remembers. some photo you forgot existed. some scent that reminds you of her. it always loops back.

and then, like always, she said it again.

“you were such a weird kid.”

i nodded, sipping my chai.

“still am,” i muttered.

then we both paused, looked at each other and laughed.

i said, “to be fair, mom, i haven’t dunked my face in a mud pot in years.”

she smirked.

“you just do it metaphorically now.”