Friday, June 03, 2005
Scarecrow's only scaring himself
Illusions never fake their lives
Trick cards fool the eyes
Carry zeroes over 'til they add up
Bury tears in the chapters you shut
Sometimes the jail can't chain the cell
And the rain's too plain to tell
All alone by a barren well
Scarecrow's only scaring himself.
-Beck - Scarecrow
One of my coworkers, Cris, the one with the PhD, basically apologized on behalf of the Bossi for the whole pseudo-firing episode today. She said they both feel bad about it, they have loads of respect for me, they said I am "one classy girl" for talking myself out of it, and they were surprised that the whole thing didn't cause me to just completely fall apart. This is nice to know.
But really, I am a fantastic actress on the stage of life. I am in pieces, but you'd never know it.
I fake and I fake and I fake, and I just can't stop, because if I stop I will have to think about what is really going on with me. And when I think about it I feel as though someone has taken a very sharp knife and carefully removed the part of my heart that makes me funny and sweet and witty and loveable and replaced it with a nauseous misery, a desperate longing, and a constant, hammering fear of my own loneliness. But when I look down I see the scalpel in my hand, and I am covered in blood. I have done this to myself.
I am not independent or smart or persistent or resourceful because it is who I am. I am these things because I have to be. Because otherwise I am lost -- I am the one putting a needle in my arm, I am the one crying in the middle of the work day, I am the girl shivering at a bus stop in a bad neighbourhood in the middle of the night. I am alone, and so very very scared. Truly, the scarecrow is only scaring himself.
So I fake it. Because otherwise I am naked on the bathroom floor. I am fucked, and not in a good way. I have pushed the huge ball of sorrow as far down as it will go, exactly the way I was taught to never ever do, because otherwise I just can't function.
Someday the people who are now my acquaintances may be friends I can confide in. But until then, I have to fake it really, really well. I have to be an expert at small talk, because no one really gives a fuck about my life or how I got here or where I'm going. This is just about the worst time for me to have no friends.
Sorry, guys.
I should have just given you a fucked-up flash video. Then you might have thought my words were worth responding to.
-N
