Monster on my Chest

Monster on my Chest

           There is was again, the monster on my chest. I could feel it pressing down on me and making it hard to breathe. I clicked away from the news feed and rubbed my eyes for a moment while the feeling dissipated.

What right did I have?

Who was I to express an opinion that lurked inside me when there was something so other about me? I was an outsider, I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t empathize, I could only sympathize. Even now as I refused to look at my computer screen the distinction was clear. I could not possibly imagine a life outside my own. I was a shadow, a no one. I lived here on the edge of anonymity where anyone who saw my face blended it with the next.

The monster was on my chest again, pressing on my insides to make them squirm. I could feel it gnawing at me.

I was other. The words rattled around my brain, a mantra. It wasn’t in my nature, I wasn’t loud or overly charismatic. I was just me. Who was I to say that it was my voice that should carry change? Who was I to say anything?

I inhaled deeply, the air filling my lungs and pushing my monster down for a moment.

It is the call to arms that has perhaps bothered me the most. To arms…

I was other.

I wasn’t a fighter, I was writer. Someone who lived half in a fantasy world where something bad could just be erased.

History written couldn’t be erased, but it couldn’t be paid either. There wasn’t a point in dwelling on something that no one could change.

The monster returned. I fidgeted in my seat and grabbed an elastic band to stretch between my fingers.

The past written in books, burned in the present. Burned in my mind; images…hundreds of images that I couldn’t connect.

I was other. I was no one, nothing. I was a cog in a machine that would forget me the second I wasn’t needed anymore. My name would not be written in blood, my name would not be written in pages children commit to memory as they sit to learn about something that never changes.

Who was I to say anything? The monster beat my chest in time with my heart.

There is was again…the moment of disgust I couldn’t quite hide, the moment of panic I felt. What if I was a monster?

I was other. I didn’t have the right to an opinion. I was voiceless.

Human. Human. Human. My heart chanted as the monster dug claws deeper into my lungs. We were all human. The god that was science said so. The laws that men signed said so.

I sat there paralyzed, knowing two truths simultaneously. It was not my blood that ran in the streets. It could have been my blood that ran in the streets.

Humans were cruel. Humans were the only creatures that perhaps had the capacity to understand cruelty and we exploited it. We hurt each other and why? What was the reason?

We were other.

Perceived or not we divided ourselves in spite of science and in spite of the laws we swore to follow. We made ourselves other.

The monster had worked into my throat again and I swallowed hard against the bile that rose in my mouth.

Was I really any better? Could I say that I was better for my awareness of a chronic problem?

I was other.

My eyes drifted back to the angry people on the newsfeed. Was I supposed to be angry? Was I supposed to feel outrage or a burning hatred deep in the pit of my stomach?

My hands twitched restlessly, snapping the elastic across my skin.

All I felt was my monster crawling up my throat.

Hatred of the other. Where had that gotten us in all of existence? If we were so sure as to what it meant to know right and wrong, good and evil how did we not see it. How did we look in the mirror every day and not see it?

Hatred has always bred hatred.

I was other. Was I supposed to be hated?

Were we really so stubborn as to not see it?

My throat was burning now, my eyes starting to water.

Would reaching out a hand be enough if it were just slapped away? Two sides. Two sides. Two sides.

Why were their always two sides? Didn’t we all want the same thing?

I was other.

It wasn’t my blood running in the streets. It could have been my blood running in the streets.

My heart was pounding again as I stared at the faces of strangers on the screen.

I was no one. I was faceless. I was bled into the crowd, stripped of identity.

Us and them.

Why did it matter? When was it enough?

I closed the newsfeed window and closed my eyes. The images were plastered there.

Who was I to have an opinion?

My monster settled back into my chest.

I wanted to be brave. I wanted to say that I stood there fist raised as brothers and sisters. I wanted the conviction to burn in my belly. I wanted to know who had it right. Where was the past to justice lain?

I wouldn’t do it though. I would read the news and I would sit on my hand while my monster crawled around in my guts.

I was other.

I was tired of fighting. I was tired of agonizing over the actions of bones. I was tired of being us and them. Perhaps I was even tired of being human.

Where was justice? Where was peace and equality? Where were the world of men who believed in such things?

I was other.

My computer was blank now, but still I could see them.

Their faces crushed me, their messy stories swimming around me like water to salty to drink. Maybe I was drowning. I was voiceless, faceless.

I was other.

My monster squirmed and I welcomed it.

Guilt.

Guilt that I would do nothing, guilt I felt being other. Guilt knowing that I would still fail in conviction.

I was other. I longed for it not to be so.

Maybe one day, when the fighting was done.

Maybe one day we would all be truly free of the demons haunting us.

Maybe one day there would be no other.