My eyes wander around the room, not really seeing anything. My body is completely limp, the laptop sitting in my lap without anyone to look through the photos on its screen. There is no one here. I don’t move. My blinking is purely automatic, my heartbeat mechanic. The music playing in the headphones falls on deaf ears. It’s going in, but there’s no response. How long do I have to sit here before someone notices? My face is completely blank. No, not blank. If someone were to look deep, really deep, they would see “lost” written in blood all over it.
What am I doing here?
What happened to me? What’s still happening? I imagine situations where you look straight into my eyes and ask, “what are you really feeling?” I reply with, ”do you really want to know? Do you want to know what I really look like?”
I imagine you saying with complete conviction; “yes.”
So, for the first time since I can remember, I let my face wash away. My smile falls first; that smile that everyone says is always on my face. Next, my cheeks droop. Soon the circles underneath my eyes start to show. Lastly, I let the brightly coloured shutters over my eyes break apart as my true emotions show through. And you know what is left behind, how I’m feeling? I’ll tell you: lost, scared, hurt, sad, confused, cold.
I imagine your understanding and sorrow shining through your eyes, and you gently cup my chin with your warm hand. You wrap your strong arms around me as my bottom lip begins to tremble. I cover my mouth as I bury my face into your jacket, the tears sliding down my skin now there is nothing to hold them back. My body is wracked with sobs as I cry into your chest. I don’t even know why I’m crying. No, wait, yes I do. I’m crying because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do about anything. I’m so lost.
“I don’t know what I’m doing…” I sob. I don’t know what I’m doing at school. I don’t know what I’m doing around friends, or around people in general. I don’t know what I’m doing with my family, I don’t know what I’m passionate about, and I don’t know what I want to do with my life.
“I know,” you whisper softly against my hair, “it’s going to be okay.”
And I believe you. Just a few words, and I know I can do this. I still have no idea what I’m doing, but that’s okay, because no matter what, you’re going to be here with me.
Trouble is, I don’t know who you are. And nobody cares. They want to see the happy me, the one that never lets anything get to her. They don’t want to hear what I have to say. They’re too caught up in their own problems. They can’t see outside their little box; they don’t want to. And I’m alone.
Come find me.