Words

I wish I could explain in words what I’m feeling right now. I wish I wasn’t so numb to everybody around me. I wish I didn’t accept it all like there’s no problem whatsoever. There’s never a problem, just the simplest of explanations. I’m supposed listen to ideas of what people think I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to act like casual occurrences and the throwing around of words is just what we all do sometimes. I’m supposed to remain silent, because none of it has anything to do with me. I’m a lost figure in the background, a distant spec of floating indifference and somber feelings that only really re-circulate every time I think about it, which is all the time.
No, wait, that could be considered an understatement. Almost everything I say is an understatement at this point. I can mask my contempt when we’re all under the influence, being social and attempting to forget about the undeniable mess that is an intricate part of our somehow muffled voices off in the distance. I can hide behind made-up names and events that only came close to happening. I can unwind with people who understand, or at are at least better at it than the rest.
Some act as if everything is too casual. As if it’s just something we’re supposed to smile about and discuss in private spare bedrooms where a Polaroid of better times is faintly hidden behind clouds of smoke and blurred vision.
I can think about running away, but it’s only thoughts, and easier to write about as opposed to an actual act of modern deviance. The truth of the matter is that I’m stuck living with this, and millions of other subtle dips in the road, because it is in my absolute opinion that people will never change. Nobody cares about anything other than themselves and we are all destined to inevitably disappoint one another.
I suppose this is a realization I should have come to a long time ago. I should have buried previous shreds of hope along with thoughts of things that are bigger than me. One-syllable words that mean more than life to some people and to others are just like confetti. They get thrown around when we’re all lost on crowded loud sidewalks.
It’s something I should have seen coming, but to say that I had anything to do with it seems beyond delusional. I don’t have much to do with anything. I bury myself in background noises. I’m not part of a movement. I’m a hushed voice at the back of the crowd, somebody who only hears vague traces of a chanted message. I have high expectations for possibilities that barely breathe, and attempt to exist only if everyone for once managed to see things that way.
They wonder why I act like I hate everything, as if it’s an allergic reaction to the air and surrounding spaces. All I have to tell them is to look around. Be perceptive for once. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of you start hating everything simultaneously. I could be in middle school again, the looks never change, just the locations to which they’re carried out with the utmost accuracy.
Maybe I’m the one who hasn’t changed, always being too accepting, or quickly leading the retreat to similar locations of pure unadulterated loneliness. Maybe I’m to blame for everything. It continues to repeat itself over and over again, like changing seasons or a scratched record. I’m a three-minute pop song in a futuristic world where “She Loves You” has become obsolete. It’s never that simple, right? There’s always another Yoko.