Hello. You haven't met me before, but I know you. You think you've met me, but you really haven't. You haven't seen me or heard me; you definitely haven't spoken to me, and I'm sure you never will. I don't expect you to, and you don't really want to. You don't really care.
Don't worry, I don't hold it against you. No one really tries to know anyone else. I certainly didn't try to know you, but it happened anyway. I can't help it--I can see right through you.
I just wanted to let you know that every time you call me confident, it takes every ounce of willpower not to laugh. Instead I smile--a smile that feels fake, is fake, like plastic, and never reaches my eyes--and shrug a fake-shy shrug and fake-deny it. My denial is real, but I can change it so that it looks modest, so that you'd never suspect. I don't know whenever you decided I was confident--I thought it was more obvious that I wasn't? I suppose not, because everyone else thinks the same, apparently.
Hearing you tell me I have an earth aura exhausts me. I know my own aura: it's blue, not brown. My element may be earth, but has it ever occurred to you that I'm not the soil and the trees but instead the shadows cast by sharp boulders and precarious cliffs and underground caverns?
No, it hasn't. I thought you were blind to me, but everyone can't be blind. How did I ever become a talented enough actress to radiate an entirely separate aura for myself? Did you make me that way, or did I do it to myself?
I'm not even real. Who you think is me is a facade. She's a costume, threadbare but still being worn. There is no other option for me. You haven't given me another option. This is how it must be.
Remember when I sat in the floor and cried, alone? You found me by accident--you weren't looking for me, and I certainly hadn't wanted you to see like that. That was me, but you said it wasn't. You asked me what was wrong, and when I told you nothing,
you accepted it.
You accepted the answer, and you walked away.
That wasn't the only time. The same question, the same answer, with frighteningly growing frequency. Or, it would have been frightening, if you would have thought, even for a second, that my answer wasn't true. Did it honestly never occur to you that maybe there was something wrong? If it did, you never showed.
You've never known me, but I've known you. I've known you for a long time, and I hope that soon I don't have to know you anymore. You'll never know me, and I don't mind--I shouldn't have to tell you who I am for you to learn. You don't deserve to know me.
Sincerely,
a stranger
You said you never even knew
but every time I cried to you
you asked be if I'd be alright
and I said yes every damn time
and you forgot that
people
lie.
Now you think that I'll be back
but I'm never coming back.
She tells you I'll be back
but I'm never coming back.
They all say I'm coming back
but I'm never coming back
no, I'm never coming back
I am never
coming
back.
