You ever get that feeling… Just, that dark, gross feeling down in your throat? When it creeps in… You’re reminded, belatedly, of your lot in life. You don’t have any true friends, but the ones you have like to pretend. They tolerate you, but deep down you know you’re invasive. You haven’t been around long enough for them to really like you, and you know they never really will. It’s all a show, a show they put on for a public appearance. Not one of them, none of them have ever bothered to contact you and ask you how you feel. If you’re alright. Of course you’re not, but how would they ever know if they ever ask? You can put on a good show too, hide the dark brewing inside. It’s turmoil, a festering wound. It’ll pop one day, you know. It’ll npop and spill all over your friends, and probably your family too. It’ll npop, and you’ll go with it, washed down the drain like some refuse. All you want is something to relate to them by. THE thing to relate to them by. You want other things too, of course, but this, this takes the cake. It consumed you, this desire. You get sick thinking about it, and Her. Your self-proclaimed gatekeeper. She doesn’t know how you feel either. She said it herself she doesn’t know you, but had she really tried? Has anybody tried?
 
I walk amongst them but I am alone. I want to tell my stories and hear their hearts sing in woe, to match my mournful tune. I want to expose my blackness to them, and they to me. I want to know that they feel as I feel, that they know. But how can I? I can’t do that. I’d burn every bridge I ever made. Every one of them. They’d look down on me, like I’m weird, or wrong. Like I don’t fit in. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I don’t fit in. But do I try? I think I do. I think I try, or try as hard as I try at anything. But really, what’s the point? They’ll never accept me. They’ll always demand I “better” myself. “Self-imtpove.” They don’t say it, but I’m not good enough for them. I’m the odd one out, the least of them. They don’t think about me. If I left, they probably wouldn’t miss me. They’d move forward with their lives while I languish, left behind, as I always am, anf as I always will be.