The Wishing Jar

     Wishing.

A curious thought, no doubt. Many people confuse it with a goal, lumping the two together. But no; a goal is something to be worked towards. A wish is a fleeting thought. A hope. A dream. A happy ending. A wish is something to pine over, something to look back on and smile at. And so, I have decided to keep all my wishes inside this very jar, and here they will be safe. I hope that one day this will be opened by someone I love and that my wishes will help them, guide them, or just make them smile. I hope that I can do something worthwhile.

      I wish I could find... Find what? Find a place, a feeling, a personality. I am not myself, but I am not another person. I simply exist. I blend in; I slip by; I disappear. A shadow, simply in the background, observing. My dark locks create a barrier between my own ears and the sounds that threaten to penetrate: laughing, shouting, talking. But it is the whispers that haunt my mind, the soft snippets of conversations that float throughout the air. Upon reaching my own ears, they are but quarters, halves, slivers of words and meanings, the whole piece being something I will never know. I ache to know. I reach out to those pieces, pleading and grabbing, in hopes of getting lucky. In hopes of knowing. I wish only to hear. I wish only to be spoken to, acknowledged.

 

 

 

 

      I wish I could rest. School is a struggle; jumbled words, empty walls, blank stares. A sense of space surrounds me as if there is flashing yellow caution tape around, warning others, yet there is not. There are no orange cones, no rails, to hold someone from approaching, and yet, no one does. No sounds enter my ears; no shoulders brush mine in mutual friendship.

     Lunch is to be avoided. I learned soon enough that one does not simply join a table. One must be asked or invited to sit, and I never was. The chairs around me remained empty, the excited chatter of classmates never reaching to my lonely corner. Even the music I blasted though my headphones could not push away the heavy, hanging air that I was enveloped in. And the worst part? I could not get away.

     Eventually, I memorized my teacher's handwriting, perfecting it so that I could easily replicate it. A simple swish of a pen, and I was allowed into lunch detention. A blessed, quiet room away from the endless gossip, away from everyone else. Silence is to be expected here, and I welcome it. No one's eyes skip over me as I eat. Instead, I am looked down upon by adults, questions swirling through their heads, no doubt. 'What did they do?' 'Who are they?' 'Why are they here?' No matter, though, for at least I can feel their gaze. A disapproving one, mind you, but for the first time in a long while, somebody wants to know me. They want to know who I am and why I am here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

     I wish I could erase. And not just erase in general; I wish I could erase words. Words, insults, I guess you could better name them, but 'insults' is another word meant to sound black-and-white yet is anything but that. I much prefer... criticism. After all, criticisms have to start somewhere, and where else are they found but on the person being talked about? Such simple words, little dents, scratches, cracks in the armor I have constructed to protect me.

Push over.

Chubby.

Fat.

Ugly.

Plain.

Forever alone.

How can a few letters knock down a suit of armor that has been constructed over so many years? Should my shield not be thick enough by now? Should my body not be covered by now? Should I not be able to ignore?

 

 

 

 

 

 

     I wish that I could change words. So many of them are harsh and rough, full of ragged edges. What is a word, after all? How is a jumble of letters supposed to represent a situation or a person? Adults like to use blunt words. Words that sound so simple when said aloud but are very complicated when applied in real life. Bullying. An easy word to say, not so easy to live. But what really is bullying? How can one word apply to millions of situations?

Misunderstood.

Underestimated.

Unappreciated.

These are better words. Words that express more than 'bullying' does. Bullying. Such a silly word. A word that could do just as much good gone from our language as it does now.

      I wish I could heal. Heal flowing blood; heal cut skin; heal scars; heal broken hearts. For surely, healing would come in handy at this moment. But yet, how do you heal? It is not only physical. No; the hurt, the gushing rivers of pain, flow much deeper than a simple cut. Yet one line, one slice, can help remove pain. Not forever. Forever is a silly thing to hope for in our world. But just for a short time. A snippet of stolen minutes to forget all the bruises on my already black-and-blue heart. But yet, peace cannot last forever, and that time of forgetfulness must come to an end. And after? After, I am left with no memory of my stolen time. I have no shred of peace to hold onto. I have no more relief to help me through. I am left with only scars. A simple, silver line yet one that brings shame. It is something to be hidden away, covered up, from the rest of the world. A secret of my own but one that I do not wish to bear.

 

 

 

 

 

     I wish I could leave. Leave this miserable place which causes only pain. Leave to that perfect world that we all imagine, the ideal society we all want to live in. But how do we get there? How do I get there? There is no map, no guide, to show you the way. No person to take that path with you for it is only traveled by the broken, the ones already dead inside. And I am. I am bruised and cut and beaten beyond recognition. There is nowhere else for me to be.

     How? How is it that I have become so compressed inside of myself? How have others been okay with it? How have I been okay with it? In complete honesty, I do not know. I. do. not. know. Was I weak? Was I naïve? Or was I just wrong for this place from the start? I suppose I shall never know. Such answers will be forever lost in the black hole of space. Just as I am. Just as they have been forgotten, so have I. And just as they have disappeared, I will follow in hopes of the better place. The better world. The better life. The better me.

 

 

 

 

 

     I wish I could fly...

Author's Note

Thoughts?