a girl like me

She is a fraud.

This thought passes her mind once a day, always jarring and depressive. The knowledge that she cannot show her true self weighs on her shoulders, causing the familiar pressure to build in her chest. The pain which can only be resolved through the act of revealing herself to the awaiting judgement of her world. The burden of many others just like her, shared across their anonymous shoulders; silence keeps their world from collapsing.

Fear contains Want in this never ending balancing act.

Sometimes, she climbs to the door of the Closet and reaches for the handle; she lurks here for years, tightening her grip until she has the strength to finally push. Only four times has she found the courage to open the door, never daring to take a step out, yet merely allowing others to look inside. Although they could never fully understand just what she was revealing, she still revealed herself; those who were finally gazing upon her secret would be forced to accept her or lose her.

Thus far, she has received nothing but acceptance; the one thing that calms her anxiety.

Even then, she struggles to accept the idea of her closest friends partaking in her lie. The lie of her very essence, and she had dragged them directly into her shadow. She realized that, whichever ways the Closet tried to suffocate her, her friends brought a breath of fresh air. Their unwavering love and immediate acceptance often threatened to bring her to her knees in gratefulness; her friends manage to ease some of the pain she carries in her heart.

She began to think that maybe, just maybe, she could finally open the door and walk freely from her self-contained prison. Yet her inner struggle remains concrete; she will battle herself till the end of time in this war for one.

Jealousy is a thief. She ferociously yearns to join those around the globe who are unashamed to be who they were created to be, to scream from the rooftops with the colorful in solidarity. She longs to become part of the one community she feels she cannot proudly represent.

What a toll Pride has taken on her.

The words she so desperately wishes she could say get trapped in her throat, forcing the little girl inside to choke on her own thoughts and face a cold reality.

She screams and screams into the abyss of the Closet. Unbeknownst to anyone but her, aside from the select few, she lives as a misfit in her own mind. A feeling she wouldn’t dare emit onto any other soul. She continuously erases pieces of herself from the view of others, always silenced by Fear.

Fear is a heartless entity; oppressing any thought of freedom and keeps her shackled in relentless captivity to the Closet.

She wishes the Closet was a welcoming place; yet all that lives there is loneliness. An empty wasteland, complete only by the existence of the erased. Lonely people who will never receive the feeling of being able to express themselves with no qualms or restrictions. To reach the full limit of allowing their true selves to experience the beautiful world as it should be experienced; these souls remain oppressed by the taunts that Fear whispers in their ears.

Always alive, yet never living.

Her one wish is to watch the sunset on the day she frees herself from the cage that is the Closet. To know that only honest days are ahead of her, enveloped with the feeling of mightiness that would ingrain itself into the unapologetic skin of her authentic self. She longs to feel the light that came thousands of miles just to touch upon her newly freed soul and warm her from the inside. The chance to breathe in life as she is destined to.

This is the life I imagined for myself; and until this moment, it was unattainable.

I wanted validation, but I could not begin to accept the consequences entwined with coming out; a burning resentment for myself latched onto my heart.

Today, I am finally saying goodbye to Fear.

I can finally breathe.