duality: a confession

Forgive me. This post is self-indulgent and overdramatic, but I want to say these things and so I will say them. 

You see, writing is a very manipulative act. You are trying to convince your readers something, planting your own thoughts into their heads so you can get them to say yes, this is beautiful, this is right. You are trying to get them to think that your thoughts are beautiful and good and correct and that you, therefore, are beautiful and good and correct.

That is why I only wrote the good parts of my thoughts; I wanted to convince the world I was good, but I am not. Only writing the beautiful parts of my thoughts has hurt me very, very deeply; I have created a version of myself that I wish I could become, written down thoughts that I wish I could truly convince myself to think. I thought writing only good things would make me good, but it didn’t. It made me worse.

It was very interesting – I saw this beautiful, perfect version of myself full of only beautiful thoughts getting popular, and instead of feeling accomplished and happy, I felt like a fraud. I felt separate from my words, like I was putting on a beautiful suit so I could write something beautiful, but I kept writing because I loved the idea of making others think wonderful things.

But one day, I couldn’t find my beautiful suit. I wrote something and it was miserable, miserable, human. I tried writing again the next day, but nothing beautiful came out. I tried sewing the beautiful suit again, but my ache embedded itself into the suit and ruined it.

It’s been like this for half a year. Some days I think I used all my beauty up, and all that is left is this big, gaping ache. I write something ugly and aching and human and hide it in the books between my shelf, embarrassed that this part of me exists. I thought I left her in the past, that I was too mature to feel hurt, but I am not and I am tired of being embarrassed about it; I am trying to embrace the hurt parts of me too.

The process is laborious; I wake up in the morning and see the dark circles under my eyes and I do not hide them. I hear the hurt bleed between my words and I let it; I write something full of pain and I do not erase it. The truth is that I am both beautiful and ugly, both forgiving and full of anger; the truth is that I am human, dual by nature.

Maybe one day I will be able to write the truth.