For the times I did not connect,
I chewed my nails,
creating blood at the corners of my fingers.
It hurt me, but I kept going,
kept chewing something away,
for what I knew was anxiety created within me
from a lack of understanding
of me in the world.
It wasn’t empty space I feared,
it was what I had to fill
in it’s place,
that was full of detachment to meaning.
The emphasis was on self doubt
and loathing,
gnawing at me with a capital G,
and the more I wanted it get rid of it,
the more the impact of it grew.
I was never the person
others imagined me to be,
cutting my self worth down with each
misunderstanding seen as a deception.
Observed as an abnormality,
there was never a good enough explanation
for those looking at me
through the glass windows.
When my time comes,
my legacy will be half in actuality,
and the rest split into tiny slices
on a pie chart,
not knowing what they represent,
for it wasn’t decided upon when I was awake.
Years will grow into decades,
and centuries later I will be forgotten,
with those alive understanding
the reality of living in ambiguity
among strangers.
