Let's Pretend

Every day, I felt as though I was melting away. I felt as though there would soon be a puddle of me underneath where I was standing, and every time I felt this way, I wondered, had anyone ever just vanished? Just fallen through the cracks in the sidewalk? Of course, I knew that was impossible, but it still seemed as though it was viable. I did try to see a few times if I could walk through walls. I let myself go, and started walking. I never achieved such a feat. Nor would anyone.

When I was little, and sitting in a circle on the floor with my class, I looked at all the feet, the shoes, the socks, to see which ones were mine. It always took me a while until I remembered what sneakers I put on that day with what tights. Those were my feet. I could never play Patty Cake because I would get confused about whose hands were whose, and which one of us was singing the song correctly.

Many people?s fears are spiders and snakes, being hurt in an accident, and death. Mine was always just finding myself walking down a hall, people surrounding me, and with every step I become more and more transparent, until I completely disappear, and no one notices, because I was invisible at the start. And whenever I cut myself, I always think it will be water coming out of me instead of blood, and when I poke myself with a needle, I?m half-surprised that I don?t start to deflate. I don?t expect to feel pain, and I don?t expect to cause anyone else pain. Chairs always seem off-balance, and people seem like figments of my imagination, fragments of myself.

Look, there she is. There?s Shani. I think, looking at someone else, until I sadly remember, that I am myself. That all the mistakes I ever made were mine. My accidents, my grief. They were all mine.
I always liked myself better looking from the outside in, and I always liked other people better looking from the inside out (which was more often than not, difficult to do). Everything was foreign. Everything was too simple or too complex. No Happy Medium. Mirrors boggled my mind. I would look into one, and either choose not to believe that?s what I really look like, or I?m startled to find my reflection, as though I?m not special enough to have one. Or that I?m alive at all.

?Don?t you remember the good old days, when every sentence started with ?let?s pretend???