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“I feel like I am just footsteps away from either screaming in fury or breaking down into body-shaking tears… and I’m not sure which.  But you’d never tell it by looking at me.  I’m good at bottling things up and repressing my reactions.  For a while anyway; every bottle breaks eventually, no matter how sturdy its glass.  I don’t know when I began this habit, or why I keep doing it, but I do.  Better than flying into raging or sobbing at the drop of a hat, I guess… isn’t it?” – Josh

(#00280)

Anything is better than being assumed to be unreasonable. Unstable. Unreliable. In brief, everything that people like me are expected to be.

I fought for everything I have. The way things are, those who are less in social standing have to do twice as much to get half as good. At the bare minimum.

To prevent dangerous cracks in the public eye, I have to vent in extreme private.

There’s a little cupboard well away from walls I share with my neighbours. I line the walls with as much fabric as I can squeeze into the space I don’t need to exist in there. Then, with the help of a pillow, I scream and cry until those cracks are -however temporarily- secure.

Every time I go out, I can feel the world’s eyes on me. Watching. Waiting. Wanting me to fail. It weighs heavily on the cracks in my bottle.

Every day is the same. Only little details change. The faces of the people who squeeze me out of my seat on the train. The sharpness of the elbows that find reasons to pummel me. The slurs dropped from lips with the pretense of innocence. The shoes on the feet that try to trip me. The coats on the backs of the people who cut me off in queues. The bluntness of the shoulders that collide with me when I try to get into doorways.

The voices that apologize and never mean it, when I am passed over for employment.

But then… I suppose it’s what I deserve. For the sins of my ancestors. For the sins of others exactly like me.

White men did so much to ruin the world.

It’s only fair that the world exacts its revenge.

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