Elucidating Questions

There was a woman staring and laughing at me on the bus the other day

It could be any number of things

I wear a mask because I am immunocompromised

I have plushie keychains on my walker because having a walker at 33 was awful and they make it better

I have half my head shaved because I use that as my non-binary hair style

I don’t shave my legs because fuck that and I don’t want to end up unconscious in the shower

Tonnes of things about me scream “different”

And I tried so hard to ignore it even though she was making a huge show of it

But my alarm bells where going, I felt threatened

And something often happens on the bus

It’s amazing how people who are allegedly adults act like teenagers at school at any given moment

Something goes against their narrow world view and suddenly it’s something to ridicule

I carry plushies around at home

Sometimes I sit on the deck and vape with a plush under my arm

It started out as me being so starved for affection I needed it

Then I realised they calm my insane nervous system

And then I realised they’re fancy pillows and I can use them to cushion my outside chair’s armrest

Like it started with some desperation but they actually play a key role in my brain calming tf down and not getting bruises from leaning on myself or other things

But I’m unfortunately surrounded by other people and have a shared backyard and the stares

I think people put a lot more meaning in my plushies than I do

And the masking thing

People are just rude and I’m almost afraid to pull my mask out on the bus because people treat you differently when you wear one

Meanwhile I am just trying to protect myself from being knocked on my ass or worse just because I went outside

The antimaskers now think it’s appropriate to ask people why they’re wearing a mask

And I just feel scared

I feel scared of every interaction where someone is staring me down because I feel threatened

I don’t know what they’re capable of

And I know what other people in my life have been capable of.

I don’t know how to defeat anxiety

Every time I go out I feel unsafe

And I don’t know how other people just casually go about their day when murderers walk among us

I just can’t forget how dangerous people can be

Any of them at any moment

It’s hard enough living with other people who are my family

I hate thinking that living in isolation would be better than this, but people’s energy is just so frenetic these days it’s like everyone is one second from popping

I spent my entire childhood trying to stop explosions before they happened and now everyone is an explosion waiting to happen

Woe

Having enough trouble keeping my own explosion in check

I think people think that because I act differently I want attention when that can’t be further from the truth

I’m just not willing to compromise on stupid “adult rules” that go unspoken but protected like precious things

They’re mostly stupid, arbitrary crap that was created by the wealthy to trick the poor into accepting that life is dull and has no worth

I’m not going to conform with rules that don’t serve me

Simple as that

If other people breaking the rule could harm me in some way I’ll obviously follow it but stupid things like “plushies are for children” and “wearing a mask makes you a sheep/snowflake whatever”

That shit doesn’t serve me and reeks of propaganda

I do what I want

Selfish pacifist style

What if there is no judgement in the afterlife from others, it all comes from ourselves?

What if we dive back into life thinking “I’ll do better this time” over and over

What if some just love life and come back again and again?

What if others stay in the safety of the afterlife because of what life did to them?

What if they cautiously try again?

I don’t believe souls come from nothing

I believe they are something we cannot even fathom

That life beyond life is so different we can’t even imagine it

It pains me that any poor soul who spins the wheel of life and ends up on this planet is 95% likely to end up struggling

We should usher born souls into the world and make it as worth it as possible

Some say you choose what happens to you in your life

I don’t think so

I think we signed a contract saying anything could happen

Maybe it was a deal

I want this to be a place that welcomes and cares for all souls

But we seem to be running her into the ground

And so what if there are billions of other Earths out there

Or Earthlike places anyways

We shouldn’t destroy this one

Abundance doesn’t cheapen

In anything but a capitalistic mindset

Some day I want to know where the Milky Way goes

I want to know what the Sun becomes

Some day I want to meet the Universe face to face and ask all those questions I never get answers for

I hope peace finds every soul

I’m still having trouble understanding why life isn’t inherently selfish

I don’t know if this is my first or maybe my 1000th life

I just know I want to go to a place where I am safe and so is everyone else.

Sometimes the scariest part of living is admitting that this is real life

Among the silly thought processes I try not to feed into

The desperate want for things to be easily solvable

As if there’s an on off switch

It can’t be real right?

Whatever my brain cooks up is probably kinder than reality

And every once in a while

To breathe the air I breach the sea of insanity and face it

That this reality is more than I will ever be able to comprehend

That humans are capable of such terrible acts

That things are cruel

Facing that I am terrified of this world every single day

That I can’t handle this reality and I don’t know why

But I also don’t know why other people can handle it

I wonder if my life would be different if I wasn’t disabled

If I’d still have that ability to erase the horrors of humanity

It’s fine when it’s a fantasy but finding out it’s all based on real things just takes the fun out of it

Except it didn’t for so many people

My ability to cause harm makes me want to isolate away from people

Others don’t seem phased by the fact that no matter what they do to be agreeable someone will take offense to them

My neighbours terrify me

I miss having a private backyard

Now dozens of people could be watching at any moment

So uncomfortable

I hate being perceived because it’s dangerous

It makes me nervous

But I love wearing colour and I’m visibly alternative just in a colours way

Having a walker doesn’t help either

People stare all the time

I wish I could live in a forest somewhere

And not die spectacularly

I don’t know why it has to all be so complicated

I want to go to a world where things are simpler than this

They don’t tell you how unfulfilling it is to live with chronic illness

They just diagnose you

They don’t tell you that none of the medications that could help are covered provincially

They just prescribe you them

They don’t tell you PWD doesn’t cover enough to live independently

They just evaluate you and determine your eligibility

They don’t tell you you’ll spend the rest of your life seeing people online who think you’re worth less than they give you

They just do nothing to try to sway public opinion in your favour

They don’t tell you you’ll feel like a burden and other people will reinforce it

They just do the tests to see if you are one

Medication is supposed to help but instead it blows holes in your wallet

PWD is supposed to help but instead it pays thousands below the poverty line

Diagnosis was supposed to help but in a world that diagnoses you and then feeds you to the wolves

What help is it to know what’s wrong with you?

A thousand reasons why this life isn’t fair and not one solution to make it fair

It’s like we internalised the cruelty of nature and felt the need to magnify it

The times I’ve walked past restaurants with enticing smells with less than a dollar in my bank and hunger pangs adding to the cruelty of food I would never eat

Wondering what it’s like to sit in a world full of houses but none of them are for you

Blessed to have a home that may actually be steady for the first time in 15 years

No one told me it would be the home I came from in the first place because I wouldn’t be able to afford rent elsewhere

Aware there’s a certain sick luck in it being there

I just wanted life to be worth living

I wouldn’t be able to answer if you asked me if it is

Some moments I feel like it is

Others I feel dragged down into the moment that is my life after life without chronic illness

There’s no telling what I could do if I hadn’t been stopped in my tracks

Now I’m sponging off the government

It’s really hard to see other disabled creators have the worst things said to them

Because I know people think that about me too

I wish I wasn’t so pressured by other people’s opinions

I wish life was more kind to people

I wish my efforts before I became this way had culminated in me being able to support myself

I wish the fact that I worked myself into this condition counted for something

That I gave so much of myself to my jobs that I now have nothing left to give

But it doesn’t

And no one told me that would be the case

I don’t want to hurt people

Like the thought of causing harm makes me want to isolate myself away from humanity

And learn how to photosynthesise

But there’s this anger in me

There’s this rage

And I don’t know if it’s a culmination of every time I held my tongue

Or if it’s a self defense mechanism from trauma

Both?

Any other number of variables I’m missing?

But it doesn’t matter

That anger is destructive

It hurts people I don’t mean to hurt

And I do so well hiding it, usually

Just like I hide everything else

Because people see a sliver of me and they recoil

I feel like The Beast

Like life has turned me into this gnarled, poisoned, beast

Even if I was pretty I’d have this monster inside of me

And I’m fighting it

Beings of wisdom

How do I feed the right beast?

How do I give power to the being inside of me that can overpower my own anger?

I have to love

A me that I see and feel nothing?

The silence you leave me when you’ve already answered and I’m being foolish and asking for answers I already have

Do the singing birds love themselves?

Are you certain?

Maybe it’s a different kind of love than I know

Such beautiful songs

I feel like if I was to sing a song from within it would be dark and sad

Even though the songs in my head are usually Jpop anime idol songs

I don’t know

Watch me dance around the answer and not with it

How?

Can’t say I’m trying

It’s so hard

So many people are telling me I’m not worthy of love

Why am I valid?

We all start innocent

Not guilty

But by virtue of the society we are in and the pressures each of us face we collect the harm we do to the world around us

I don’t want to do harm

So I have to forgive…

No

Accept what I’ve done and love myself anyways as a means of protection from a world that does not love me

Such a tall order

Man the things I have done

They’re not as bad as some of the things other people have done but I expect perfection from myself and hold myself to a higher standard than the world I live in

I guess maybe don’t do that

I’m quite broken

I’d like to be whole again

I’m afraid if I love myself I’ll think I can’t be wrong

But I’m tired of singing the same old song

It’s hard to do something from nothing

Without having a guide to explain

May there be a day my song looks more like I wanted it to

I’m going to try to say I want to learn instead of I don’t know how

I feel way too much

I was not made to take the cruelty of this world

It’s all a blob of things I learnt at one time or another, but it’s too much

All the things humanity does

Has done

And I feel solely responsible at times

My parents’ crusade to make me take responsibility for everything my siblings did compounded into my feeling responsible for the human race

So naturally I’m just filled with despair I can’t do anything

And I stopped believing anyone else would years ago

But then my brain tries to turn that on me also

This is all happening because you can’t believe in a better world

Or believe someone will help

It feels like if I can’t fix it

I wonder what silence is like on Mars

I don’t want that future to be hers too

I feel responsible for the animals

And the insects

And the plants

Fish, lizards, anything alive

Which is only the entire Earth

But I am so small

Completely insignificant

I shouldn’t even be having these thoughts that pit me as some saviour of humanity

I really don’t think I’m that great or capable

If you asked me what should replace everything I’d say I don’t know for sure

But at my core I know the way things are is wrong

People are overwhelmingly wrong

The truth is I wish everyone would take responsibility with me

Feel some kind of comradery with other living beings

Recognise the basic needs and do our best to provide them for everything

I don’t want to be a saviour, or any of the other half cobbed things my brain comes up with, about why the world being like this is my fault

Atlas how do you put down the world again after you pick it up?

Do you even want to carry it anymore?