Take speaking, for instance. Speaking is terrifying. Trying to properly convey thoughts or emotions through the spoken word and doing a good job of it is truely a gift. I can't do it. Speaking is weak to me. The thing about speaking my thoughts and feelings is that I get flustered. I stutter and I'm usually under so much pressure that I just can't physically find the words that I want to speak and everything I say comes out into some utter garbage. And so I can't speak words. I can't tell people how I feel when speaking. And so that's why, most of the time, I choose to write. But even in writing there are tricky parts to it. It's hard to tell people straightly, "I am depressed, I do not like my life right now and I'm beggining to realize that I don't think I ever did." People have such a sense of justification, and are so suspicious of everything. One thing that I have a love hate relationship with in writing is the fact that you can't just tell people something, you have to show them or they won't believe you otherwise. And even then, even when you show them in the best possible way you can people will still say, "Whate are you talking about? You're perfectly alright, you're not feeling that." There is too much disbelief in the human race for people to be honest sometimes. The problem is that people whipser the lies and everyone clings unto that, but when they're shouting the truth they are told to shut up.
For me the solution I have always found when expressing myself, particulary in writing, are metaphors. From the time I learned what a metaphor was I have been using them. And even before then, I realized, even before I knew their proper definition. Because I surrounded myself with books when I was a child, I engrossed myself in literature that was overflowing with metaphors. I remember, distinctly one of the first metaphors I made. I was five, I had hurt myself, a bruise on my leg from running into something. Instead of telling my Mom I hurt myself I told her I felt like a horse kicked me in my leg. I may have had metaphors before that. I probably did. I had read the horse kicking in relation to pain one in a book. A lot of my life came from books back then. A lot of my life still does. And so even today I use metaphors to describe my feelings. The thing about metaphors, it's like wearing a mask while telling the truth. And in some simple way, that makes it seem a little better. Because I paint my pain or happiness or wonderous nature behind these words, behind the connatations of like or as. They seem prettier somehow, not so raw and terrifying. And they seem more relatable, because I think that's what metaphors were meant for. You take something that not everyone is feeling and compare it something that everyone has felt or can at least imagine what it feels like. But even then, even in metaphors, they have their faults. Because not everyone understands metaphors, not everyone understands the sometimes fault of speaking the plain truth. I've actually had someone tell me once how bullshit my metaphors were and that I should just say my feelings. And then I did, and then I was told I wasn't. Shut up, Keshia, you don't know what you're talking about.
Do you wanna know a metaphor now? Do you want to know how I feel?
There's a difference to everything. It's like I'm stuck in these waves and they're just beating along. And I just let them hit me, over and over. But sometimes, I catch myself. I get surprised because I thought I was on shore and I'm not. I'm not nesscarily sure how to get back there or why I even want to get back there. I just know, really, that I'm tired of the waves.
Fin.
-Keshia
