“I have always been a dreamer, you know? But in a world draped in illusions, I have always tried not to let it show. I think it’s the only place I can be myself anymore; where I can wrap myself in all my fears and firmly lock the door. But I do realize that there are these little windows; some, that inadvertently betray me. Sadistic smiles that grow wider as my memories force me into submission and flay me. I try not to let it break me, but I can’t hold out for long. The world needs to realize this is wrong, and that I’m not strong enough to drag my feet along the lines of sheer agony. This isn’t right. This can’t be right.
As I write this note, I realize I’m the only person who sits alone on in one dark corner on a rusty bench. My classmates all look at me with contorted faces like they inhaled a shitload of stench. It’s hard not to break; it’s harder not to let it take a little part of me away, everyday. But inevitably, it does.
I remember how the boys around me looked at me when I came here first. One by one, they tried their luck as I punctured their bubbles until they burst. Some mistook it for aggression, some mistook it for bitter pride; others said if they looked in my underpants they’d find a dick inside. I didn’t mind. I thought with time it would subside. The voices outside and inside my head have since, never died.
Only if humanity had learnt to empathize a little. Only if it could recognize the irony of a rough exterior protecting something brittle. I had never paid heed to chances: rejected all the advances not to be a holier-than-thou iconoclast, but only because of what I had to go through in the past.
I remember my 7 year old body being overpowered. I remember watching him standing over me as I cowered; pleading with him not to rape me. I remember screaming until I wanted to bleed to death, I remember wanting to drain myself of every last breath until I begged to God himself to take me. That pain. Never again.
Since then I have tried to build my defences for an eternity. I have locked myself inside and wallowed in self pity. No one will understand the rage I feel, or how it feels like to never heal. No one will feel the goosebumps on my skin, or feel the blood in my body boil from within when anyone mentions the mere concept of intimacy. All I do is close my eyes, take my mind back to that time; for the wounds to open, and for my hate to push me into overdrive. If only you could taste this hate.
So as I write this, I maintain that I still like to dream. It is what I am, it is what I’ve always been. Call me ignorant, call me a lesbian cunt, call me something sharp, call me something blunt; but that will never change the sheer brunt that I carry on my shoulders. I could lift one shirt sleeve up far and show you the ugly marks and the scars, the reminders of a dark and distant past, but I wont. Your simple, plain lives will never grasp the essence of something so animalistic, so gory. And to think everything around me would have been so different had people only asked me for my story. But if you can’t understand devastation and its themes, I suggest you leave, and leave me to my self and my devastated dreams. I have illusions to break, I have delusions to chase, I have memories to confront, I have nightmares to face. I promised myself I wouldn’t whine, I wouldn’t moan; but just sometimes I can’t do this alone. I hope sometimes that people would be different instead of being indifferent. Is that too much to ask for?
Until that happens, I’ll choose to live a little like this. In a world where silence is my sanctum and ignorance is bliss. My demons can pummel me into living hell with an iron fist, but with a cold heart and steely nerves I can resist and nurse these wounds that hell has kissed. And I swear to every single one of you that nothing will be missed; all I ask, is that you let me dream.”
The Devastated Dreamer 