Unseen

I am not like you, and you are not like me. Yes, we look alike, and yes we both have blood, muscles, and bones. We are both human, we are both people, but we are not the same. I am brittle, one touch and I will fall apart, shattering at the knees or maybe at the shoulders. You stand tall and strong, and I am small, looking up at you because I cannot stand like you do. I yearn for peace and for happiness but I will never find it because that is not who I am. That is who you are. I am a dark sea, waves crashing against the rocks, and you are a quiet stream with fish flowing through you, sunlight sparking against your surface. My eyes are black pools, my hair a tangled forest, and all I resemble is fear, anger, and sadness. I am undesirable while you are the desired; you are welcoming and I am not.
You say we are the same, but we are not. I cannot do what you do and I cannot be bright. You are the bright one, and I am not because I only radiate darkness and pain. You say that that doesn’t matter, but it does. I am cloudy and I am stormy, avoided because not only do others know what I bring but I do as well. The heart that beats in my chest does not beat for anyone except to live another day. It has no desires, no goals, and no interest, beating simply to exist. My own eyes look at you but they do not see you for they are tired of looking; tired of looking at you.
I am not like you because I am no one. I am not who I could be, and I no longer posses that kind of potential. You tell me it will get better, but does it? I do not grow and I do not become who I am supposed to be. It is impossible for me for I have weights on my shoulders that do not allow me to move, and these weights are anchors that you do not have because you haven’t been so scared, and in so much pain that that kind of burden threatens to shatter your being.
I look at you and I see through you. I know who you are, what you’ve done, and what you will do. You will never be me. And I will never be you. You look at me and you see me, but not the real me, not who my soul is. You tell me I look clean, like a polished rock with smooth, rounded edges and specs of color that represent my eyes. You say I am strong and wise like a tree that has stood over others in a sunlit forest. You cry out that my smile is the thing that is bright, not you, but I think we both know you are wrong.
I am not clean. I portray myself to be that way but underneath that, underneath my skin and my muscles, I am dirty and covered in tar. It is thick and sickening and if you saw how “clean” I really was you wouldn’t be standing in front of me. You would be with the others that saw my darkness and turned away. My eyes may sparkle, but have you ever thought that it was not because of the specs of green and blue but because they are broken, the shimmering coming from the light reflecting off the tiny shards of glass that rest there. I am not strong, not in the way you think. Yes, physically I am, my muscles protruding out from underneath the thin pale sheet that covers my bones, but that is only because it is protecting the weakness that resides inside of my core. And my smile in not bright. I look at you and I force one, trying to let you know that I am okay and that I am fine, but you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the reality of me and the fiction, would you? It’s because you haven’t seen my real smile, and maybe, if you looked close enough, you would notice the tiny quiver of my lower lip as I try to show you my teeth. It is fake, and I am fake. I do not want to be like this, like a false dream that is a nightmare in disguise. I want to be you, but you are unattainable, sitting up on a cloud while I am a million miles below the ground.  Everything you know about me, everything that you see is not my reality.
I am not like you, and you are not like me. Yes, we look alike and are both people, but we are not the same, and we never will be. When you look at me, you see something else that I am not because you are blind. You do not see the storm that rages on inside of me and you do not notice the constant battles that I endure within my own body. You overlook me because you see that I am fine, maybe only glancing at the few scars that are visible on the surface, but you do not see what is inside me because you are not me. The scars and the bruises that are on my heart and my bones and my soul and my mind are evidently there. My wounds are deep crevices that constantly bleed, flooding me and keeping me from breathing, threatening to strangle me with every breath I try to take. I constantly am drowning in the dark waves that engulf me but you do not see that. How could you? I am fighting a silent battle with my own demons that you do not know, and this silent battle may be nonexistent to you, but it is killing me.