Tcots Eynmcink

I would give anything to understand – no – I would give anything to feel how others feel. It’s like that scene in Pinocchio where all the naïve puppet wants is to be a real boy, when he is really only painted driftwood. Or like how Andy feels when he’s giving his toys to some random adolescent without realizing that he is abandoning his childhood more than he is giving a childhood to someone else.

I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess, in some sick kinda way, I feel a bit like the unheard clarinet in the marching band or the unplayed triangle in the back of a 100-piece orchestra. Like, the intern who is only told to fetch coffee or the CEO who loses control of his own company or the books that J.K. Rowling made before Harry Potter or the novels that are never made due to unjust censorship.

I feel like the Robin to the world’s Batman or the superhero whose power is to climb really well. Sometimes I am Romeo, but Juliet seems so out of reach. Other times, I read Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice and think of how peaceful it is to see the world as he did, without hope, but that means that there is no wrong.

Sometimes I wake up with a pinned-on tail that always seems to fall off. Most days I wake up like the untipped stripper or the elder holding an oxygen tank. On other days it’s like the green plumber in a world full of red ones. Or I feel like the misunderstood mute who desperately tries to speak but can’t communicate their thoughts.

I feel like the masterpiece that is Mad World compared to an illogical song meant to bring attention to mental illness that only really alienates the truly suffering listeners. I feel like the DJ who has spun records for as long as they can remember but was outdated by a digital age.

I am the person who trained for their whole life to be an NBA star, but irreparably tore their ACL. My emotions are Schrodinger’s cat, stuck in a box of uncertainty, when those outside will never know what I’m really feeling. My tears are the streams of unorganized thoughts that pour through the only orifice that they are permitted. My cries for help are the echoes of happier words that flow through my mouth. My smile is the Mona Lisa of smiles, for not even I know if it’s there or not.