I texted my ex to say that I missed them and maybe what I actually meant to say was that they understood me, maybe what I meant to say was that no one else understands me the way they did, maybe what I meant to say is that I'm scared. I'm scared that no one will ever understand me like that again. I'm scared of fading into the background, that screaming into the void won't carry me aloft forever and the isolation will take me and drown me and I'll be gone without a trace, no record of my life's work.
Do you know what it's like to speak and have nothing come out of your mouth? At least, that must be what's happening, because if words are emerging, sentences constructed and flung out into the cold air of the room, then why is no one looking at me, why is no one listening, why is the noise not stopping?
It's a special thing to stand in a group and watch their eyes slip over you, their arguments crescendoing, realizing you could do or say anything and no one would care. And the conversation slips further from your control, outside the realm of things you could understand, could contribute to. And that hurts, feels like a deliberate snub, but of course it's moot because no one could hear you before the transfer. Are you human? Are you invisible?
It's in the desperation with which you repeat jokes, with which you struggle to follow the three different contradictory conversations, the way no one else struggles. Is there music playing? Who is playing the music? How can anyone hear anything over the music? Maybe that's the problem, that my voice is at the exact right pitch to be lost in the velvety voice of the lead singer.
I'm speaking and no one is listening. I'm screaming and no one is listening. I have to question my own existence. I have to question why the conversation only turns to me when recounting my most embarrassing story.
I could recount two dozen things I found fascinating over the past day and yet I can see the light fade from your eyes when I go through them. Of course no one else would care. Of course not.
How come the only people who I feel like get me live across the internet, accessible only via text and call? How come I struggle to be understood here? I think I am invisible. I think at some point my brain was uploaded. I only exist in the virtual.
I can't handle this. I'm lying in bed. The LEDs shift patterns on the wall. They're not bright enough but I don't have space on the powerbar for more. I wish I did. Something deep and nameless gnaws at my insides. I've come to lose my own humanity and I always told myself that I wouldn't hesitate to, but now it just hurts, a reminder that I am lesser and different. Perhaps the punishment for craving to be virtual is to become virtual.
In the isolation of my room, I reach for you.