untitled.

My heart doesn't ache
But it doesn't flutter, either
I'm not slumped on my pillow
From depression
Just exhaustion
I'm not bouncing around happy
Pretending to be an airplane
Because I feel like I'm flying
I'm planted solidly on the ground
Just stuck where I am
Yet I feel myself moving forward
I haven't felt like this lately
Or ever.
It's weird.
It's unnerving.
It's scary.
It's...normal?

Big Picture

I just don't understand

Who's wrong and who's right?

You make sense, yeah,

But what I think feels true

Could it be we're each half of

a bigger picture?

You say, "You're ridiculous!"

I say, "This is the truth."

You say, "It's not that simple."

I say, "You can't understand."

You say, "I'm trying my hardest."

I say, "That's not quite enough."

I don't want to argue on this

But I just can't help it

Your apparent ignorance annoys me

I want you to understand

Just why it's hard to do that

"Me" isn't that easy

You say, "You're ridiculous!"

I say, "This is the truth."

You say, "It's not that simple."

I say, "You can't understand."

You say, "I'm trying my hardest."

I say, "That's not quite enough."

Can't I

Just agree to disagree?

Can I

See the big picture?

I say, "You're ridiculous!"

You say, "This is the truth."

I say, "It's not that simple."

You say, "You can't understand."

I say, "I'm trying my hardest."

You say, "That's not quite enough."

--------

I has no real idea how this would sound, I guess, other than the last bit would be sloooower than the rest.

Karen might star in a scary novel of sorts?

Karen walked through the through the aisles of Babies R Us, looking at toys for her sister's diaper wreath. She really wasn't sure what to put on it, as Sarah seemed to already have everything. Rattles, spoons, cuddly elephants: You name it, she had it. Karen sighed, beginning to think her quest was utterly hopeless.

Then there was a tugging on her shirt. She looked down and saw a little brown-haired girl in a blue dress gazing up at her. Karen guessed shs was probably five or six years old.

"Hi there, sweetie," she said, her motherly instincts kicking in, "where's your mommy?" She looked around but saw no one anywhere near her.

"You need to be careful," the little girl told her seriously. "Bad things are coming."

Karen laughed nervously.

"What...what do you mean?"

The little girl didn't answer, but looked at the shelf Karen had been browsing.

"I'd get the Pooh Bear plush," she said thoughtfully before walking away.

Karen tried to follow her with her eyes, to see that the girl was real and maybe had been playing a trick on her. That she was just some michievous little girl. But the little girl in the blue dress disappeared without a trace, just as the others had.

Harriet isn't very happy.

She'd given the note to him. Crumpled as it was, she'd given it to him. Now she waited, just waited, for a response. He was actually standing before her, reading her little blurb this second. She couldn't wait to see what he had in response, though the anxiety of actually handing over the paper may have killed her before she even knew what he thought about it. She admired him, really. He was a great guy other than this whole "hurr hurr why can't girls be more unique" thing and seemed to get people. That was probably what upset her the most about the whole thing. Harriet had been so sure that he could read people that it shocked her that something she understood so well seemed to have slipped right under his nose.

He sighed in a way that said "Oh Lord, not this again". Harriet straightened up, alert, ready to defend her position on the matter. She wasn't going to back down, not now, when she'd finally gotten something that mattered to her off her chest to someone that she cared about. Usually such subjects stayed locked away in her head for fear of displeasing someone she wanted to stick around. But now? Now she was being more confident because she actually did know a bit about insecurity. ...ha. She was confident about insecurity? Harriet smirked a little. Was she the only one that found that funny?

"Harriet, look," he said, running a hand through his hair, "I get what you're trying to say here, okay? But if it's really that hard...then obviously you're doing something wrong. Just be yourself. That's it." He shrugged. "Changing yourself for people isn't ever going to work. You can't make people love you that way." There was something in the way he said this that made Harriet feel he was referring to her little crush (read: undying love) for him. This kind of made her even more frustrated with him.

"Love--" he started, obviously going for the obvious in case his tone wasn't clear enough. Harriet quickly cut him short.

"Look, guy," she said fiercely, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, "that might be true and all, but have you ever tried being insecure? Like, really, really insecure? Now, I'm not a psychologist and I don't plan on ever being one, but this is what I know: It freaking sucks, okay?"

He looked like he wanted to cut in, but she wouldn't let him.

"Insecurity, in my case, makes you too scared to want to try and be yourself. You're too worried that the people you want to be around won't like the real you, so you hide it. Maybe one or two people get to see what's underneath your makeup, but the rest just see whatever mask you've adopted. For example, I've taken over a nice scene look. Makes it easy, doesn't it? You'll notice a lot of my friends--the ones I hang out with on a regular basis, that is--dress about the same way. It makes it easy so you can fit in right away. And if you don't fit in right away, well...then it's not so easy."

She chewed on her bottom lip a moment and looked at him, feeling tears well up. They weren't tears of weakness or sadness or longing. They were just angry, frustrated tears. He didn't look like he was going to say anything, so she continued on, her fists clenched tightly.

"And...and you get that you should try to be yourself sometimes." She rubbed her eye with the hem of her sleeve, probably smearing her makeup but not especially caring right that moment. "It makes sense to the logical part of your brain. And you want to try it sometimes, too." Harriet turned away from him and leaned back on the lockers next to them, staring at the floor. "But y-you're just so scared that you can't. You're too afraid that you might end up saying or doing something wrong and you'll lose that person forever. So you pretend and pretend, just so you can keep those happy moments. Sometimes you're not even sure who 'you' really is, so pretending is just more comforting."

Suddenly, Harriet clutched the sides of her head tightly, like her head was splitting in half from pain.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, shaking her head while still holding it, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

She turned and took off down the hall, hands still on her head as if she were trying to keep it stuck together.

And he was still standing there, holding the paper. Harriet could picture it. Now, now she just had to wait. But that was okay. After all of this, she was good at the waiting game. Oh, oh so good at it.

Harriet is insecure.

She scribbled angrily on the lined paper, her face scrunched up intensely. This letter would get to him. It had to. Then he'd see.

"HEY JERKFACE!

You shouldn't talk about girls you don't know. A lot of the more insecure ones (myself included, thank you very much) just like to be labels like that because it makes us feel safe. And preppy or scene just happen to be the safest. That rocker girl you want? She needs freaking confidence. Confidence some of us don't have. Just look at your real beloved rocker girl. The one that gets paid to do it. SHE has confidence. The majority of us? Not so much. And you know what, asshole? That isn't our fault at all. Our minds are just wired that way. We're scared of being rejected and being told we're stupid, so we find labels that people seem okay with and we stick with them. So DON'T talk about how more girls should be unique. It's freaking HARD, alright?

Hope you've gotten the message.

Love,
Harriet"

She looked at the note a long moment after she was done writing it. She reread it several times. Then she broke down crying, crumpling the note in her fist. It was hard. Harder than he would ever know. He was so confident. Of course he didn't get it.

She tore the note apart and threw it away. A confident rocker girl would've told him how much it pissed her off that he'd said that. A rocker girl would've made sure he knew that that could hurt. But she wasn't a rocker girl. And that's why she knew it hurt. She collapsed on her desk, just staying there.

It just hurt so bad.