One glass of wine and the lock on my tongue release. The repetition of thoughts on repeat, a circle that spirals out of control; out of sight – out of mind; out of reach. Why am I like this? Where am I in the prison of my mind? Thoughts controlling me outside my awareness, behaviours the results of “well that seems like how it should be”, God almighty puppetering me into damnation. And all I want to do is go to bed and like “sleeping a-decent-7-on-a-good-day” sleep it all off and wake up like myself; realistically as a 6.5, I’m not a morning person.

For years, crawling under my skin the incompatability of who I thought I was, who I want to be, and whom I appear to be. A three body problem of identity, the holy trinity of confusion, trimurti of the self, or more reasonably the triangle of reference.

The reflection in the descriptions of others so alien to myself: “I love how you care about others”, “I think you feel like I do…”, “As a friend, you were the aggressor”. I am tired. People are so human.

“What I love about you; is your stoism,” I am offered in a setting I feel like the odd one out. It’s flattering, somewhat accurate and inaccurately reductionistic.

I am comfortable in myself, secure, bored and frustrated. Stoic? sure, I’ll take it over loser. Too many years of youth spent on fruitlessly trying give people the nonsensical-right impression of myself. I am cool enough, the exclusion bullying from childhood lingering in my perception towards others. Trying as we might, we cannot escape the reductionist prejudice of people equally filled with their own wishes to be seen. People who think of us as too fierce to friend, too fat to f*ck, too successful to be interesting, not successful enough to be worthy, too damn serious to be funny. I think I stopped trying to impress people realising that no one really cares, what I do will not change that, and that the Earth will be swallowed by the sun in 4.5 billion years which is 4.5 billion years in which no one remembers me. But it still bothers me that others so rapidly paint a canvas on top of us that fits so poorly.

In the mirror I see my mother’s passion, my father’s concentration. All the wishes they had, all the fears, dreams, failures and successes incorporated into this pot of blended dna. A whole new concuction of mistakes and attempts to greatness stares back. I grow better looking everyday. Looking older, I often lie that I need botox, to appease, amuse and arise the protests of those around who walk the line, but truth is the wrinkles in my face enhance my perception of my beauty, the gaunt face a truer representation of my self image, the year’s of experience painted under my eyes, my anger between my brows, my joy around my mouth. In full, the wisdome of past mistake and the expertise to do them over and over again, and maybe eventually not. The excessive fat I could live without but living without cake seems like such sweet torture… and while I am many things, masochism never appealed to me.

Checking out as much as myself I dare.