alone on a saturday night., c/o: Rebecca Priddle.,

I could have been somebody. Like, really somebody. Someone amazing, fantastic, the person people want to be.

I would have been an artist.

Is this fiction or am I thinking on paper? Sometimes I feel like I have been chosen for some other task. That there is something in me that is unique. Something is living inside me that is not wholly part of me but is the life source by which I survive. In the centre of my chest it swells, invisible and often unnoticeable…it grows when I am alone and silent and random patterns of thought possess my mind.

To be sure in the knowledge that I am here for a reason would be entirely peaceful. If I were able to put my faith in the idea that I am here for a purpose, that I am here to help, to save, I wonder if it would change my life. Would I stop drinking excessively, which makes me the person I want to be, and sometimes a person I despise? Would feel security in myself and not hide behind my fears and anxieties.

Am I that person already? Do other people see what I do not? Why am I so…miserable? That is not the right word. Depressed? Emotionally sensitive? Paranoid?

I seek recognition for all that I do. I am proud and boastful, like a peacock who has recently discovered that behind him he drags a tail of exquisite beauty. Although I lack the tail, so really, what do I have to found my pride upon? Dreams and stories. Great plans and unkept promises. The membrane I have built between myself and the world shimmers with opalescent light but allows no view into the hunched and deformed figure it shrouds.

I’m so conceited that I am even writing about myself.