by Christina Leopardi

Created on: July 25, 2008

How to be Small...

I've never wanted anything else for so long. I want to be small, I want to be so small that no one sees anything needy or big or ugly in me. And try as I might, day after day, this is me...big needy ugly me. I drown myself is loathe and discipline and burden but I can't rid myself, I just can't rid myself!

He looks at me with longing and I think maybe this man, this one with the troubled eyes and the rebellious hair... this man could love because he has been hurt, he, too has been burned. But no, I draw close and this man breaks, and this man crushes and this man scorns. And this man, I believe nurses wounds I cannot see, I'll never see because I am ugly to him. And I am ugly to me.

And I know that girl wants me dead. I see her in my peripheral, she tosses her ponytail, her beauty a deceit. For she is a demon. She hates and she hurts too. Why is she not kindred to me? Because I am not small. The small hate the big and the big hate the big and the harsh hate the kind and the desperate hate the damaged. And I hate the world for it can never bring me the warmth I need to live. It can never give me a home.

Father taught me to be strong, to be needless, to be strong and brave. And so I carry on, carry on with the weight of my ugly on my back. I can't be needy because I am big and i can't be loved either. No one loves the dark and no one loves the large. Only the lovely get to laugh, only the tiny get to know.

Mother left me wanting, mother left me lonely. She taught me I am nothing, nothing more than I can give, nothing more than I can find. Mother left me nothing, dignity or sentiment or home. Mother left me crawling, a capacity I've known. I can neither learn my name nor make one of my own. I am just a sucker, I am just a lost.

How is it that I can want? That I can be the dreamer, the lover, the worker? I am the willing, I'll break and I'll bend. I'll recover and I'll learn to mend. So give me an inch, just a small apparition and I can get by.

But day after day I find nothing but sorrow. Day after day I find nothing but pain. Day after day I lay my head down on a pillow of empty and dread. I spread myself thin and ask to be deadened. Use me in ways I've not known. Take everything away from me so I can hurt no more. Save me with suffering, I tried all other things, I tried to be positive tried to be more but the only thing that moves me past this disappointment is for you to make me see I'm nothing again. Hurt me again like you used to do, to make my brain go dim. Take away the things that I've seen. My worth must slip away for me to believe in anything again.

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