Torn Fragility

“Non, non, non, je ne...”

I resisted the urge to tap my feet along with the music’s beat. I have a strange volatile love for foreign music and at the moment those sung in French were my current favourite. Edith Piaf, Camelia Jordana, songs you’d expect to hear in a upscale bookstore.

Though, funnily enough, I was in a bookstore at that exact moment. Maybe not that funnily enough. Whenever I’m left to my own devices in town I seem to gravitate towards that sophisticated store of paper friends. Buy a paper friend and they’ll never hurt you, never ridicule you, and they’ll always be there to comfort you, sitting snugly on their shelf at home, waiting to console you.

But they were heartless friends. They did not discuss political uprisings, the colour of the sky, the taste of soft serve, nor the beat of the sun upon your back on a cold winter afternoon. They merely told you about such small spectacular events. For a few moments you could imagine you were feeling those things but who to share your joy with? To share the pure moment of childish joy when the icy surf nips your toes, when you see a bird a hands’ breath from you, perfectly at ease, when you experience that sense of complete contentment sinking into a warm bath after a hard dirty day.

But for all their faults in physical communication books were what I returned to. Lately, any stories. Anything I could grasp onto breathlessly after a long search, triumphant, ready for a world to be swept up into, a world that wasn’t harsh, terrifyingly cruel, horribly merciless. A world where I wasn’t aware of my defects, be they emotional or otherwise.

I needed these reprieves; I struggle to communicate with people how I truly feel and this draws out my energy to a laughable degree on a daily basis. I struggle to be truly at ease amongst anyone but I wanted them to know those moments of me. Moments when I was ME, nothing else. No pretending, no holding back, no fright of social ridicule. Moments I revelled in but hid further and further away from people as I grew up and developed self restraint.

I traced the spine of a thick novel, carelessly read the blurb, gently shifted it back onto its shelf.

This is me: insecure, afraid, longing to break from my own self enforced restrictions. I find solace in other people’s stories, in other people’s fantasies.

I live in a dream world, a gilded cage of my own making.