All I want for Christmas, is myself.

"Somewhere there's a stolen halo
I use to watch her wear it well
Everything would shine wherever she would go
But looking at her now you'd never tell

Someone ran away with her innocence
A memory she can't get out of her head"
The first verse and a half of a song called Holy Water by Big and Rich. A song that plays too close of a tune to my heart. 

I feel like a stranger in my own home. I feel like a stranger among my friends. I feel as if I let everyone down in a different way.

I don't laugh at the jokes. It causes me to break my promises. It leaves me in shattered pieces on the floor, with no one to talk through it with.

I'll never quite be whole again. I'm a hollow shell, walking around with the best fake smile I can muster. Walking around full of sour tears and shattered hopes. Walking around with half a heart, trying to learn how to love. 

A mere shadow, consumed by demons throw into my life by force. A mere hunter, trying to live off the land with no arrows in my quiver. A creature of the sun, drown in the darkest parts of the ocean, required to live like everyone else. 

No one likes to think the world can be this cruel, so they ignore it. Their ignorance leads to the loss of innocent souls, ripped apart into quivering shreds, swept into the dustpan to fend for themselves. 

Tell me, how is a pile of dust supposed to become a mountain after the volcano already erupted? How can you expect a worm to transform into a butterfly? How can you expect a single-celled organism to evolve into a cheetah within a lifetime?

How can I expect people to understand when 99% of them don't even know? How can I expect people to know why I do certain things? How can I be so selfish to put that kind of pressure on everyone I meet? How can I want people to understand if I am not even capable enough to tell them? 

All these questions suffocate my existence. All the lies protect my persona. Yet when I'm left alone with all the answers, nothing can save me; not the sour elixir binge, or the sharp pain inside. Not the alterations of the impurities of the air, or the salty tears that come too often.

I sit on my bed and gently talk myself out of every dark corner, for I am the only one that knows every thought in my mind. Everyone must know to make my actions easier to understand. No one must know so I can protect the soft center of my being.

Internet, oh vast Internet, please dull my mind and show me the colors.