Etiquette

Etiquette went against every fibre in her being as the bane of rebellious souls. The posh, pompous, uppity attitude crushed the feeling of freedom and aroused in her the fleeting feeling of confidence that would drive her to defy taught regulation. The all-knowing, all-seeing restrictions burned her enough that she felt strong enough to rise in defiance.

     A shame that it was such a fleeting thing.

Those rebellious outbursts gave her the sensation of being alive, even lively, and free of these all-consuming obsessions with criticism. They granted her the brief illusion of a powerful and confident character that she so longed to be brave enough to embody.

     Why couldn't she attain it?

Rebellion is either seen as powerful or obnoxious, and for those very special moments of brazenness, she couldn't care less which impression she displayed.

     So much like confidence.

Why is confidence in her and those like her seen as obnoxious, overbearing, self-absorbed, haughty? Why not self-discovering? Inspiring? Contagious? Or for the sake of all that's good in the world, encouraging and spirit lifting?

Does it have to be seen as disgusting? Is that all that narrow-mindedness can rage on about? Must her confidence be seen as detering, while her lack thereof is spit upon as weakness?

She cannot win if that's the case, against such pompous-bellied, hideous, wharmongering.

This desperate cling to tradition and etiquette is a guide to misery, depression, and suicide, and if that is not evident enough to you now, then when will it be?

When she - when anyone and everyone - has lost all self-respect? When they rush to pitch themselves off bridges in droves? Can you not see what you are crushing within her - within them all?; the hearts being stilled and the breaths being silenced?

     She is not your pawn.

          You have. No. Entitlement.

So why would her confidence be a threat to you at all?

     She is not yours to possess.

          You are not the focus.

So where in hell did you ever gather that impression? How the hell did you ever become so misguided?

When she rises up again with the confidence to stand tall before you and never submit; never kneel; what then? Because it will happen, as it has with so many more before her, and you can be certain that she will not. Back. Down.

Her Confidence

She is the definition of inconsistency; a fighter one minute and reduced to cowering in tears in the dark the next. Brimming with excitement and promise at the sound of praise, until the encouragement fades from her mind and her doubts get the better of her. Confidence is said to be in high-heels and vibrant makeup, but she doesn't have the confidence to wear them. She doesn't have the confidence to be confident while wearing them.

What is she a part of?

     A circus?

          A stage?

               Some grand demonstration where everyone watches and criticizes but forgets that even performers have actual feelings and emotions in effect at every moment of every day?

She listens because she can hear, but she believes the doubts and the criticism for different reasons. Because her mind is geared to think that she's not good enough.

     She will never be good enough.

          She cannot. Be. Good enough.

               And it hurts.

There is a longing for confidence there, within her, pounding on the inner cage of her consciousness. There is an eternal longing to let go. To stop doubting. To start moving forwards, brimming with confidence and promise and a brightness in her eyes.

     But the light has gone out.

There are no matches, there's no flint and steel to kindle a flame behind that confidence. She doesn't know where to look. She doesn't know where to find it. An inner mantra goes only surface deep; she doesn't have the confidence to believe her own words. Outward encouragement and appreciation spurs her forwards only as long as her doubts don't tackle her right back to the ground again. Belief is hard to come by, except for the basis of her mentality:

     She is not good enough.

          She will never be good enough.

               She cannot be good enough.

                    And it hurts.

But where did that belief stem from?

For her on those days...

     ...when her body makes her feel like her internal organs are imploding and she bleeds accordingly

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

     On days when her mood has more dips than a swing dance and even just the thought of roller coasters make her nauseous.

You are well within your rights to be disgruntled.

     On those days when she can't eat for groaning and she can't sit upright long enough to see the food on the table.

Your pain is valid and you may cry accordingly.

     On those days when she feels like being murdered and she contemplates the murder of any unfortunate soul in the vicinity.

You do not - should never - need to apologize for something natural and beyond your control.

     On those days when she feels filthy and ashamed and thinks the subject is taboo with anyone other than her closest lady friends.

Scream your affliction in the faces of all and blatantly refuse to apologize.

     She is no more appreciative of her menstrual cycle than the rest of the world, but she is condemned once a month for being born as she is. She can't talk about it for shame, and she claims instead to be feeling ill. They all shy away in fear of contagion, and inwardly she scoffs and scorns:

"Oh you fools, if only you knew. This is no disease, this is my life. Please, run, as far as you can, before I tear your faces from your skulls to remove your scrutiny."

     She doesn't need the added attention, nor does she want the abandonment. And we wonder why her mood swings so far?

     "It's not so bad"? "Just deal with it"? She'd like to see you try. And not just once, but for months. Month, after month, after month; knowing, waiting, dreading, and having no escape.

     On those days when her body is ravaged by cramps, and the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme makes its horridly crimson appearance, this is for her. 

Are You Okay?

She thought she was okay yesterday. And then today, okay was a whole three universes away. She had forgotten that okay was a very temporary thing. Okay didn't like to stay; to hang around and catch up on the not-so-okay that it missed in absence. It left before things got not-so-okay and then showed up again right on cue.

So how could she forget just how temporary it was?

Okay was heartless. Okay was cowardly. Why did she want to be okay in the first place? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember, and that was precisely why. After she forgot, okay looked like the picture of perfection; the image of redemption; her only aspiration of any value anymore. Okay was the plain that she needed to be on, and she was leagues below in the less-than-okay, less-than-happy, and far less than where she needed to be. She was always looking up, looking on, at the trail of claw marks and scratches, and blood and sweat and tears, trailing after okay in its treacherous wake.

She thought she was okay yesterday and then okay abandoned her and left her drowning under the crushing waves of reality. There is up and there is down, and then there is a state of stagnant limbo smack in between, and the only state that is worth staying in is up. But that is impossible. Up requires down. Down requires up. Limbo is just a phase that happens somewhere in the middle, when up and down are slow in coming. Limbo is almost worse than down.

Limbo is hollow and empty, like a pair of lungs holding their breath at one stable level. Limbo doesn't move up or down; limbo doesn't breathe. If there's anything she fears more than falling down, it's staying still and giving up on breathing for a day. Giving up on moving. Giving up on living. She cannot deal with the feeling that there is nothing in a day worth doing; nothing in an hour worth trying; nothing in a minute worth thinking; nothing in a second worth seeing. She does not want to feel nothing; she does not want to feel like she cannot move because her body and her mind tell her that there is no point. She cannot stand the feeling when her own consciousness and subconsciousness alike turn against her and freeze her in place for what feels like an unfeeling eternity.

The better the up, the better. The worse the down, the better. Because nothing is worse than floating in a suffocating pool of nothingness, knowing that there is more than this; knowing that there is less; and feeling like there is no reason to fight for or against either anymore.

She thought she was okay yesterday, and then okay slowly dissolved into nothingness and she couldn't even claw for it back anymore, because nothing was worth it. And there are few things less okay than worthlessness.

Her.

She is delicate on the best of days; shattered on the worst. Her heart trudges through the murky days until she rockets to the skies for the briefest of respites, and then gravity drags her back down into the pitch black of life. She bounces back again, and away, all over the place. She never settles. But she sometimes stops, when the murk drags her down and freezes her limbs so terribly that she cannot bring herself to move them again. And then something, or someone, pushes her forwards and she jerks through the sticky mess to clamber out again, filthy and worn from the weary trudge. There is always a way to come clean, and eventually she feels

     Renewed.

She travels up and down from the height of bubbling laughter to the low of wrenching tears all in the span of a few seconds' time, when she loses control of everything, or rather of the illusion that she ever controlled anything

     At all.

She is terrified of the unknown; she cannot stand the out-of-her-hands though her hands are always too full to hold anything else anyways. She grasps at bright possibilities and claws away the shadowy predictions, and she sometimes falls and ends up scratched, battered, and bruised as a result. She runs too fast and tires out, and then she moves so slowly that she never wants to start running again. She can't stand standing still and she can't move to move on; there's always something to get in her way. Often times it's

     Herself.

She's been broken and glued back together more times than she cares to count, and the half-patched cracks and scratches always seem to throb and sting with memory of a painful past she wished she could forget. And if the cracks were to heal, then the scars would be there still to remind her. The moves she tries to make to change are painful. They stretch the scratches and widen the cracks, pulling at her from every agonizing direction all at one time until she curls up and cries and wishes the pain away, again

     and again,

          and again,

               and again.

She's out of sorts and out of luck, but she never believed in luck anyway. Fate and destiny have always been questionable because it was always her choices that got her from here to there, and now her choices are too hard to choose from. She hates decisions but she want to move, and to move she has to make that choice, with her tired limbs and her mind full of protests; she must choose to move against every cell and every fibre

     Of her being.

Except for that small part of her that still resists, because it is and always has been there, and it always pushes back at the dark, dank pain that consumes the rest of her. She hasn't stopped altogether yet, and that small part of her is still there, fighting. There is a point, and she knows it. There is an end; a result; and she can feel it. There is a light somewhere, up there, up ahead, and always,

     always,

          she can see it.

She is delicate on the best of days; shattered on the worst. Her heart trudges through the murky days until she rockets

     Far from earth.