Vultures

I had never been one for big crowds or grand adventures. I preferred to spend my days having a different sort of fun. One that allowed me to explore the world without the fatigue or anxiety that gripped me every time I left my apartment. One that involved me, just me, in my bedroom, alone. Well, not completely alone, I suppose. I had them with me. The princess, the witch, the Arabian knight. The rustle of the pages, the smell of an old, worn library. The characters spoke to me, or rather, I spoke to myself in the way that I imagined they would speak. Reenacting scenes, encounters. The various voices and actions flowing out of myself as easily as silk on a shaven body.

It was when I was alone that I was most relaxed, most content in my own skin. It was the only time I could truly be myself in a world of rules and ever surmounting expectation. This solitude, this beautiful, precious solitude was the kind I’d craved almost every day in my thirteen years of schooling. The kind that didn’t require me to climb out of my bed every day, only so that I could find myself in a place surrounded by people who would cherish at my every misstep. A vulture’s nest where the only way to survive was to forget who you were and blend in. The vultures waited. Watching. Hungry for the day you finally fall, when they can fly upon your broken corpse and pick at it until only glistening, white bones remained. They would fly over your corpse in songs of victory. For you were put in a world where your failure was their success, and their failure, your ladder. 98, 86, 64. Don’t worry, you’ll do better next time! It was either you or me, or him or her or they. Afterall, only one could stand at the top, and no one wanted to get the short end of the stick.

People would think I was crazy to want to spend so much time alone. In the utter silence that so many tried to escape. They sought human connection, societal validation. Was I pretty enough? Smart enough? Funny enough? They wanted love, drama, anything that could make them forget that sliver of self-loathing hidden just beneath the bubbling surface. They laughed and sang, just like everyone else, wondering what the others would say if they knew who they really were. It was a dangerous dance. That tango between likeable and interesting, the salsa between being desirable and being a slut, being trendy and being basic, being friendly and not knowing when to shut up. It was a constant chore, the stress of trying to please everyone that came your way. Comparing yourself to the success of others. Seeing that every inch of their slick, golden hair was shinier than your own. Wanting to hate them, but realizing that despite everything, you want to be their friend.

Some nights the jealousy seemed to rise like a predator in the water, striking fast and true, pulling you into the depths of the murky water. The realization that no matter how hard you tried, you would never even come close to who they were, and then feeling the guilt for resenting someone who is supposed to be your friend. I knew the feeling well enough. It was me. The girl who forced herself in tight, black dresses and slick, gold high heels. The girl that made herself talk and laugh about boys she barely knew, who lied about her weekend in fear of appearing boring or timid or other. She was the girl that pretended to enjoy parties, balls, dinners. The one that took a man to bed only to stop them from suspecting. No one must know that the girl who littered the street in drinks and glitter was the same girl that spent her time holed up in a room with children’s stories and classical music. No one knew that I would rather remain alone, in this room, then spend one more meaningless night with “friends” that I barely knew outside of their names. That I would rather move far, far away than lend out my apartment to one more party. But nevertheless, I stayed.

I guess I’m a hypocrite, for even in the comfort of my solitude I writhed and shuddered, jumping up every time my phone buzzed or rang. Because no matter how hard I tried, that need for human connection did not leave me. The need for approval, validation, for someone to talk to, even if it was about something as insignificant as a shade of lipstick or a new designer collection. The need for there to be voices other than my own. I had to be with people to suppress that loneliness that sometimes threatened to consume me, even if the anxiety gripped by body every time I set out to talk to them. My friends hugged me and complimented me, though I knew they did nothing but whisper behind their backs. I didn’t blame them, I did the same. The words that came out of my mouth were twisted and misshaped. I relished them, if only because they momentarily gave me something to speak of, to bond over, something to distract myself from the awkwardness of having nothing to talk about. Because I couldn’t talk about my real self. The one of shame and otherness that made would surely separate me from the others. No, better to pretend to be one of them than risk losing them. I didn’t think I could survive that again.

Sometimes that loneliness hit even as I drank, or danced, or gossiped. That feeling that, even when you’re surrounded by people, you are alone, and that they truly would not notice if you weren’t there at all. In those times, I looked around at the people that surrounded me. At the flailing bodies lit by neon lights, at the vomit-stained planks of the apartment floor. And in the places where I should be seeing my friends, I saw strangers. People that would not hesitate to replace you in a second as if you’d never existed. They would forget your existence just as easily as they might forget what kind of food they ate the week before. That was true aloneness, when you realized that it truly was just you against the world. In those moments I drowned myself. I drowned myself in the alcohol, in the pills, in the men. Until I awoke, and carried on again the following day. I went to every gathering, every party, every holiday. I had to because if I didn’t, they would invite someone else. And I would be left in the dust.

That was why my precious solitude did not last, as I knew it wouldn’t. It was the reason I put down the book at the ring of the phone. The reason I threw on my lipstick and trudged out of my apartment door into the stinging rain.

“I bought the vodka.” I said as I got into the car. A smile plastered on my face like a broken doll.

“You’re late.” She replied as the girls pulled me into the car, “Next time you’re driving yourself.”

One day I would run myself dry. I would wake up and never pick up the phone again. But this was not the day, and it would not be for many days to come.