I wake up every morning only after the third alarm, sometimes after the fifth. Twenty minutes of interrupted sleep, yet I don’t get up. I just close my eyes and wait for something to stop the inevitable, but it never comes, so I go to work.
I take the long route just so I can sleep on the bus. When I finally arrive, I settle into my cubicle until 5 p.m. I find myself smoking in the bathroom simply because I realized the fire extinguishers don’t actually work. Which means a fire could burn this whole building down and we would understand it only once we were trapped in flames. The comfort this thought gives me is enormous.
Every once in a while, the foolish small talk I’m forced to participate in drifts toward wars, peace, and other tragedies people pretend they know anything about. I claim to believe in peace, or that things will eventually get better, because I’m the bigger person. But I’m a liar. I don’t believe in anything. I believe in resignation, in erasure, because we’re all sad, sad creatures mistaking technology for progress.
I’m a hypocrite. I don’t let anyone know how bitter I am. If you cut me, I’ll bleed glittering hate. They do not know I have more respect for the vending machine than I will ever have for them. I am Mrs. Concealment. I give them only a glimpse of my dissatisfaction so they know I’m not a phony, merely a hypocrite.
When I return home from work, I cry on the bus, releasing everything I concealed from nine to five.
Will I be hospitalized in a mental asylum in the near future? Probably. For having a breakdown too shattering to endure all at once. Though it’s important for you to understand that every minute and every encounter of my life brought me there.
Because I’m just another sluggish girl from the undefined cusp between Generation Y and Z. Not a narcissist, nor a sociopath, though I sin with apathy. I don’t gaslight anyone but myself. And I don’t slap myself in front of the mirror. I do it privately in the toilet.
I’ve worked almost every minimum wage job imaginable ever since I was a teenager. Now, in the late second decade of my life, I’m proud to announce I earn two pounds above minimum wage.
Unlike that Austrian painter, I was accepted to art academy. And when I graduated, I tapped myself on the shoulder and said it takes courage to be poor and still decide to create art. After a year of unemployment and draining my retirement savings, I slapped myself again. In the toilet, of course.
Now I work a job where I’m clearly overqualified. Every time I overhear my coworkers discussing their tragically average lives, I smile knowing at least my destruction has range.
I also cracked the code for avoiding addiction to any one specific thing. Instead, I maintain a constant urgency for self-sabotage and simply replace my addictions monthly. I’m still poor, and I grew up even poorer.
And I’m fully aware I’m not special, though I still wish to deceive certain people into thinking I am. Just like everyone else, I blame my parents too. I hate my father, but I refuse to become another daddy-issues cliché.
I mocked white trash families for years until I left my neighbourhood only to realize I was white trash too. I can’t afford to rent a flat, so I live with my non-functioning family in a tiny social housing apartment.
I’m held together by safety pins and Zoloft. Both of which are obviously going to unravel eventually, because everything leads toward the moment I’ll be sitting in an untied hospital robe with my ass bare to the world, too sedated to care.
It’s very clear that I’m a victim of injustice. A victim of society, of art consumers, of men teaching women to teach other women how to mutilate themselves for desirability, of pornography, of endless versions of myself I could never become. I have a friend who broke her nose after falling asleep while scrolling through her phone. Social media mutilated her face twice.
I don’t buy drugs from uneducated dealers. I’m civilized. I wait in line at the pharmacy with a real prescription. And if I use something that cannot be purchased there, then it was naturally gifted to me by a true friend.
Intimacy terrifies me in this modern world. The only time I find it pleasurable is when I lie in bed in the dark imagining an imaginary caring partner. You know, the kind who doesn’t snort powders and combinations named after fashion designers. No toys, no choking, no ropes.
Whenever I become ashamed of how attached I am to my imaginary life, I ask Gemini whether escapism like this is normal. I never like its answers, so I ask ChatGPT instead for detailed validation.
Some nights I close my eyes and dream of an apocalyptic primitive world where only two professions remain: medicine and prostitution.
When I couldn’t understand why life hadn’t smiled at me yet, I tried astrology, psychology, even therapy, anything that said that I’m the master of my fate. Since I realized destruction mattered more than talent, and that the only talent people truly want to watch is the talent for destruction.
True crime became more addictive than ketamine. Murder is now hotter than pornography. Amateurs online become detectives. Bundy became an international icon. Wuornos became a feminist symbol. Right there, serial killers established the “make me famous” culture long before influencers perfected it.
Suppose I’m frightened by the inevitable collapse waiting for me — is there really such a thing as bad publicity? I suppose it depends whether people still mention your name in your absence. I’m willing to go this far instead of admitting one simple truth.
When I picture myself in the hospital opening my mouth so the nurse can confirm I swallowed my medications, I imagine my coworkers describing me to the employee replacing me.
I just hope they’ll say I wasn’t a phony.
Just a hypocrite.
******
***
The ManifestStation publishes content on various social media platforms many have sworn off. We do so for one reason: our understanding of the power of words. Our content is about what it means to be human, to be flawed, to be empathetic. In refusing to silence our writers on any platform, we also refuse to give in to those who would create an echo chamber of division, derision, and hate. Continue to follow us where you feel most comfortable, and we will continue to put the writing we believe in into the world.
***
If you are a writer looking for a safe and rigorous community, check out The Craft School. CRAFT SCHOOL is founded and directed by three multi-genre writers who love teaching and have earned reputations for being good at it (see bios here). Tell them we sent you!
***
Inaction is not an option,
Silence is not a response
See our Resources and Readings