cherry blossoms out of japan

normal sickness

we're on a rooftop. it's almost 3am. 

i'm sick of being abnormal. i'm sick of being with friends surrounded by a loneliness i've tried to shake off for years, warped around my body, tightening over my skin, until the feeling becomes my flesh, my blood, my bones. i'm sick of drinking to forget and remembering everything still. i've sick of forgetting my words as soon as they come out of my mouth. i'm sick of ruining the happiness in my friends' mouths, drunk on a moment and tequila. i'm sick of the sadness. i don't have metaphors for this one. it's sadness. it's everywhere in me. i don't need to explain it to myself. i know it way too much.

they're laughing. i'm in their blind spot. they don't see my reddening eyes; it's nighttime anyway. they don't hear my silence; they're filling it with their own words. they can only feel how little attention i have for them. attention rules the world.

i cry, i just want to be normal, i say.

none of us are normal, a reply.

i have a medical condition that makes me different in a way you probably cannot understand the way i want you too, i scream inside my mind.

we're all a bit fucked up, continued.

hands around my tear-strained cheeks. people don't usually touch me.

you're as normal as everyone here.

i know they want to help. it's fucking cold and my sweater isn't protecting me. i want to roll my eyes and scream at them to get away, they don't understand, they don't understand, i'm in a fight that i cannot lose. a fight that will last a lifetime. this is five minutes of my life happening before my eyes. i'm not in control of anything. 

it's an illness. it's not normal. it's not supposed to be there. 

thinking about death everyday of your life isn't normal.

but on a rooftop away from the world, when people lack attention, it seems like it is.