Didn’t they tell you? I used to be you.

 

I wouldn’t recognize me either. It makes sense that you would shut me out. I’m disgusting—all of your past innocence thrown together in a boiling pot of acne and sorrow. I used to get angry at myself. I used to bang my head against the wall and say, “Why can’t I just be you already?”

 

Now that I take a really good look, I’ve realized you’re just as sad as before, not at all put together. You’re still driving home in your empty car listening to the ads, trying to keep your arms from jerking the wheel and sending you into the ditch.

 

You still fawn over the smallest amount of sympathy shown by anyone. The lady at the grocery store telling you to have a nice day is enough to send your head spinning, wondering, did she really mean that?

 

You won’t talk to your friends, you wait for them to contact you. If they really cared, you think, they’d come,

 

but they won’t.

 

I waited so long to be you. You were the hope that things would get better, but now, all I know is we’re both doomed to be broken records