I dedicate this to every soul on this planet who has ever felt like a misfit,
To those who have felt the coldness creep into the spine as they look upon the world, with no sound but the beating of their own heart and nothing to keep them warm but their own breath,
To every braveheart who has stood up for a belief so strong, pure and powerful that it scares the multitude, who is unable to grasp its beauty,
To every innocent soul who has trusted someone despite their better judgement, let down their walls and allowed someone to see their true self sans the inherent protective cavalry, but instead of acceptance found criticism, judgement, deceit and a crumbling wall of fake vows.
To everyone who has ever felt alone, judged, deceived, heartbroken, unloved, unappreciated, cheated, ignored, hollow, unwanted, misunderstood, awkward, weak, frail, broken, lost, I dedicate every word, every syllable, every thought, every idea to you.
No matter how hard it is not to believe in the goodness of people, the truth is that you will be let down by most of them. Then infiltrates the anger, mostly at your own self for ever trusting someone with your thoughts and secrets. And then comes in the determination to never ever trust anybody again, to build castle walls around your heart, to shut your soul off in the highest tower and throw away the key so that it can never be found and no one can ever hurt you again. But then despite all of the pain and suffering and tears, you open the castle doors after piecing together your shattered soul, sewing up your tattered heart, and venture out again, get hurt, come back, lock yourself up, cry, and the vicious cycle never breaks.
One thing that I’ve realised as I’ve had people rip my heart out again and over again is that in the moments I feel completely and utterly alone, like I’m the only person to ever feel so brutalized at the hands of cold, oblivious and inhumane antagonists of my life, I visit the darkest places imaginable, my mind drowns in the depth of the deepest darkest thoughts and I feel utterly lost. It is in these moments we need to hold on to the beauty and peace that seems like an illusion, a chimera, a mirage at such times.
As John Green says, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in the world. But you do have some say in who hurts you.” I do believe that there’s an exception out there, someone who is going to make me question every opinion I have and prove all my cynical perceptions wrong, someone worth all the pain and suffering, someone who will be the reason for me to break down all walls. But until the day I meet that noble soul, I refuse to be hurt by ungrateful fiends. I wield the shield of numbness, indifference and ignorance as I wander alone, my moments of clarity guiding me home against the forces of the wind and tide. I choose not being hurt.
That Girl in the Fray 