Since my youth, I had always felt like a stranger in my own mind, shackled by anxiety and disapproving glares. I remember life being merciless – not much has changed. School felt like an isolated island where vicious predators lurked, hungry for a new prey. Something made me their target. Teenage years would soon spark a realisation, a cause to my miseries.

Memories of the humid heat and scolding sun start to flood back as I dwell upon those past years. Time froze within those prison walls. The sound of buzzing bees and the smell of freshly cut lawn clippings filled the foreign summer breeze as the intoxicating taunt of home emerges. Summer normally would be associated with fun and laughter but yearly mine serves as a reminder to my traumatic family.

Secondary school was like salt in a wound daily. Bullies were the excuse, they were like criminals so desperate for popularity and power they were like clay under another’s influence – so easily moulded and misshaped, so easy to break under a small amount of force. The first pinch of salt – the people, the second? Work. Stacks of textbooks, hundreds of exams and past papers and years of revision and endless studying. A set of exams decides our future based upon a manipulated memory test. Everything leads to a fixed future. Living my life and exploring the world feels like a distant dream. Freedom from this agonising torment of a life is only available to the rich and fortunate. Everything is judged. Every mistake costs you in this vicious cycle…

A glimmer of good remained.

Strangely, in this hellhole remained the soul to my life. Here I forged friendships so simply yet as the clouds begin to grey on these later years, only the memory of simplicity exists. It helped loosen the chains held by my heritage and here I felt a smidge of freedom. The world’s oppressive and fucked up society restrained me from being accepting of my differences. Realisation could’ve hit me sooner. The sky is only the limit if I disregard people’s thoughts, yet I just hide away, cowering away from constant fear of judgement, with good reasoning.

I see love. The one thing I desire more than anything, I see everyone around me have so easily…

Jealousy invades my head. I see everyone being encaptivated by the aura of love, yet I stay alone. Isolation is my new routine. Happiness only shows when I hide my other emotions. I want to show them I can love and that I don’t care what they think! Still, I do. Constant thoughts of rejection flood my mind every time. Holding hands is as easy as taking a breath for them so I remain suffocating on sadness and the invading jealousy.

I see their smiles and wonder what I did to deserve this difficulty. If I was ‘normal’ then I would unlock the key to love and find “The One” for me. I don’t believe in fate or the stars aligning but there must be someone out there – somewhere, who is perfect for me and maybe I have already met them or maybe they are halfway across the world waiting for me.

My naïve, childish mind was full of dreams and aspirations, I hoped I could achieve as I grew. Silly things like ‘starting a family’ or ‘getting a girlfriend’ or ‘earning lots of money’. Those thoughts now are worlds away from reality. Time changes everything, so don’t mourn the past, change the future. A quote I live by. Or at least try to. Goals may have changed but the imaginary scenarios which I escape lay set in stone; being my main flaw – I think anything is possible with enough time.

// For later on in chapter

Home was like a fire, constantly fuelled by my father’s constant rage and my mother’s inability to put it out. Everyone in that house felt the blistering burn - me, my mum, yet never him. Volcanoes rarely erupt constantly but tension rises so quickly in this place that blood starts to boil the minute you walk through the door.