Introvert

19

 may be triggering. mentions of wanting to die (suicidal thoughts) and homophobic language

'Like cream in coffee,

I want me to swirl with you,

blend now and be still.' ~ Tyler Knott Gregson, Daily Haiku on Love

||Shyanna||

Chemistry is not my favourite subject. It's not my least favourite by a long shot, but I've just never found much joy in it. I took it for A-level because I wanted something that could translate to several fileds of work (this was before, of course, my realisation that nothing is beautiful forever so, in actuality, I could have chosen anything). A large part of taking it was also my mother, with her constant insistence that I needed to know how to be appropriately medical in times of need. This, of course, prompted by my own wishes of death and of ending to something that I sometimes question.

But it isn't terrible, and I'm not awful at it, and I sit in front of Niall, so I'm assured of some songs to look up after the lesson. Not because he talks to me about them, because he rarely talks to me, but because he's always singing something.

I'm wriggling in my seat when I hear the beginnings of a telltale hum. It's echoed, soft and warm, by Zayn. I'm trying not to get angry at him, trying not to see red at the fact he made me late for lesson with his clumsiness, trying not to feel like it was his fault I couldn't talk to Anna or Kristy at lunch. 

I try, too hard, because I know how awful it is to do something wrong that you never meant to do and then be yelled at for it. Hopeless, I guess. It makes you feel hopeless. Like life, I suppose. 

To me, life has always seemed so hopeless. It has always seemed like something for the here and now, and the future has always seemed daunting to me. Because I have never imagined living one. I've gotten better. I've gotten out of bed, gotten to school, smiled more. I'm not fixed, but I'm not broken. I'm an endless paradox of everything and nothing. Everything, because I am. I am in the breath of winter and in the tendrils of smoke from flames. But I am nothing because I am so inconsequential. And yet I am not, for I have a purpose. It is this that drives me, that makes me feel like I deserve life. And, yes, I was broken, and I still am not whole. I am a rolling tide, a roaring flame. I am kerosene on an open flame. I am not flickering, I am roaring. I scream with silence and yell with tears. I am because I am, will be because I have to be. 

I have wanted so desperately to die that life has seemed daunting. So many times I have whispered to damp pillows that I deserve not of life but of nothingness, of death.

"Oh, he treats me with respect/ he says he loves me all the time/ he calls me fifteen times a day/ he likes to make sure that I'm fine."  It's louder, now, as Niall sings the first verse. I snort as I hear him, voice trilling and overly high pitched. Zayn is singing alone, a soothing and warm noise as they sing. 

I giggle, gently, as they then sing the second stanza. I love the song, have listened to it on nights when I needed a laugh. It's lovely, the singer of the song is lovely. It's just hilariously gendered, and considering I've heard Niall is heterosexual, it's funny. And nice, to know some people don't have to deliberately change the pronouns in a song.

They sing along as the teacher, a woman who prefers to be called by her first name of Tendra than her last ('It makes me feel old!') explains the experiment we're to be doing. Tendra merely ignores them, knows how they are and how they act. In fact, they manage to get almost the whole way through the song before anyone comments on it.