u/Adam_shd07

They see me laughing, standing up, answering calls, so they think I’m with them, but inside, there is a bizarre silence. I appear laughing while I am wounded, but from time to time, my facial features betray me and show my face looking miserable. This person who is speaking—behind him, people are investing, and in return, they expect perfection from their project. I hate feeling like a failure, even though I feel this feeling many times. I hate the feeling of rejection, which I also felt a lot, and that's what made me like a dog chasing the piece of meat called perfection; a human being shouldn't make mistakes. I became like someone working in a call center on a night shift—the idea is not the call center, the idea is a youth whose hair turned gray and still hasn't said 'no'. The idea is someone who still doesn't want to end the chaos that exists in the depth of his soul. The idea is a youth whose hair is black, but from the inside, he is like an old spice merchant from Fez, wandering from village to village. Whenever I say my sentiments have frozen, I discover that it’s just my nervous system that became old and tired from rejection and disappointment. I became a defense player. I started running away from my emotions; I always need a space to escape to, always fleeing to my comfort zone, always hiding behind a fake yellow smile while I’m just comforting myself. I became like a parliamentarian: I listen and say 'yes, I will do it', but I still haven't done anything. They memorized the program and lost hope in me.

I’m tired of being patient, and this ghost is still chasing me until it became my shadow. Whenever I do something, it whispers in my ear: (“Still lacking…… still not the one you're supposed to be”). A ghost because of which my tears are still falling, because of which I’m still afraid, because of which I write so many messages and erase them without sending them. I’m tired of hearing from my parents: “you can do better.” I’m tired of the girl I like seeing me as her brother. I felt like I am just playing a secondary role in the story of my life, until I started feeling like a bad copy of an old dream. No one could do better. One day I will wage war, and there will be no peace left for the chaos. God is the Conqueror, I am just a human.

I am not perfect and I will never be like that, but this thing got used to me and became part of my story. It lives with me; I see it when I look in the mirror, and it reminds me always and every night that "you can do better." Sometimes I let myself go to this depression, I let it drag me to the dark place of my mind—that's where questions wander: Why all this fear? When will my smile come back to me?