Chew on That Thought

I couldn't very well place what I was feeling into words.

He had always been an obsession, or better yet an interest, of mine since last Valentine's day. His eyes were soft, somber, sullen, yet completely loving. He hardly knew my name, let alone whether or not I was living. The corners of his lips curled into a healthy grin and he pulled a blood red rose out of a bouquet of flowers. Originally for his girlfriend, he had been giving the flowers out to those who had no valentine for that day, both to boys and girls.

I never had a valentine. But that day I did, even if it was only for a matter of seconds.

The bright pink lips upon his face uttered a name that I had only heard once before. His voice was barely a whisper, and yet the entire hallway silenced as they watched him hand me the solitary rose.

And so began the rumors. The nicest of things he could do was twisted in a sick and perverted sense by every single teenager at that school.

Plenty of them approached me and had asked how long. I replied with, “How long, what?” Then they went on to ask how long we had secretly been dating and how I had managed to live knowing he was dating another woman.

I would leave.

They didn't know me, they never would know the real me. I was just another stupid, alone teenager without any friends. Lacking in a social life, forbidden to look in the same direction as those kids. The ones who were perfect. The ones whose schedules were bursting at the seams, and everybody who was anybody knew them.

I longed to be one of them. To fit in. To be part of something.

But I never understood how. How could I manage to be a part of the group that was so different from me?

And how were they different?

We breathe the same air. We wear the same clothes. We eat the same food. We go to the same school. We walk the same ground. And yet, we didn't. I wasn't good enough to eat the same food they did, let alone walk on level ground. No, I was less than them. I was nothing, I was a bug. They considered me to be a piece of gum stuck to the soles of their shoes which they are so desperately trying to scrape off so their shoes don't look like trash in front of everybody else.

I was nothing more than a chewed up piece of gum. That's all I ever felt like anymore.

But one day, I would show them. One day when they took things to far, when I'm on the brink of insanity, and one of them simply nudges me off the edge, I would show them what it was like to be less than nothing. They would know what it was like to be me.
~~~

We won. The people like me, we won. That day, even if it was only for an hour, those kids knew that they were nothing more than what I was; a piece of trash, some chewed up gum, just another thing on the Island of Misfit Toys.

It was simple, really. Actually hilariously simple. You wonder why more schools haven't implemented a safety system, especially with the reoccurring school shootings. None of the teachers found me suspicious for the same reason as always; they never noticed me. I was another student with hair that was too long and wore too much eye makeup. I never had A's, so I didn't matter. I wasn't worth their limited time. I was just another person waiting to graduate.

I was a cry for help.

At my locker, I turned, and every thought slipped away from my mind. Who would be my first victim, who? Would it be that brunette over there, doing her makeup and smiling at herself, the captain of the cheer squad? Or maybe I should hit the boy, the one who broke my nose during a game of dodgeball that I wasn't even a part of.

My fingers locked around the trigger of my father's gun, and I slid it out from my pocket. Still nobody had noticed. The irony in this situation is that none of them would notice me any other time at this school, but as soon as this shooting happens, everybody will be pointing fingers at me. For what? For my “problems.” For my troubled life, for the jumping around foster homes and finally being reunited with my birth father, for the endless nights of being lost in my own mind. Just my mediocre past would implicate me immediately in this case.

A ball formed in my throat, and my fingers were clammy. I could hardly keep a hold on the gun in my own hands. It was slipping away, but I couldn't drop it. If I dropped it, everything would be over too soon.

The end of the weapon, barely sticking out of my jacket, pointed at the girl down the hall. She had been my friend before, but now, a traitor, a monster whose foundation flaked off at the end of the day, and mascara looked like spider legs. She was like a doll maker's first creation; botched and imperfect as he moved on to his newest creations. She was always jealous. Always jealous of something.

I hiccuped, and my fingers just barely squeezed around the trigger. I thought I had broken something after the bullet burst into the air and flew past the crowded halls.

I missed her. The bullet had just barely missed as it sank into the hip of a skipping teenager. Her hip twitched as though she had just been bitten. Suddenly blood began to spill onto her hands and stain her gray sweatpants. She fell into the arms of a familiar student, but kept her gaze on the wound upon her hip.

The halls had stopped. Just as they had when the boy handed me the rose, they were silent. Nobody said a word. But the rumors did not start this time. At least, they wouldn't until I was gone from sight and mind.

All at once, fingers were pointed at me, and everybody was screaming. I panicked. My hands were too sweaty to simply hold the gun at my waist anymore. I don't think I could have held a piece of paper without dropping it at least once.

I didn't miss the traitor the second time. I only hit her shoulder, but she acted as though I had shot her in the heart. She groped at her chest, right where her heart was, and gasped for air that was in abundance. Her overreaction made me angry, and oh! How I wished I could have been closer to shoot her again. To show her the real pain she had unknowingly put me through each day.

No. She knew what she was doing. When her friends laughed at me. When they laughed at people like me. In her mind, she knew she was tearing me apart. Breaking me down into the lowest thing possible.

But this was my ground now. A burst of adrenaline took over, and I realized that this was my land. It wasn't about who was the quarterback, and who is the captain of the cheer squad. They were in my world. They were learning about what it was like to be lesser than garbage, to be the doormat they walk on, to be the thing the scraped off of their shoes every day.

I laughed, and that must have set them off. The students sprinted for classrooms, a futile movement as my hands trembled and bullets flew across the halls. It would never end, this feeling, this emotion that rushed through my body. I thought my heart was going to explode right out of my chest cavity from the excitement. It was like I could feel it coming right through my body. The ball in my throat had increased ten-fold, it was as though I had swallowed a load of cotton.

And then it stopped. The gun clicked. Empty. Like my mind, just empty. Yet the caskets were full. I could tell just from the grim looks upon the teens around me. The ones that had remained. Blood stained the lockers. A fresh look for the school, I thought. They always complained about needing a new paint job.

The scene around me was gruesome. I blinked once, twice, three times... Had I really done this? No, this wasn't me... I wasn't capable of something like that.... In my own mind, I wasn't. The violence, the death, the pain, the anger.... It was like my own fantasy world had been displayed right in front of my eyes. Like the roles had been switched, and I was them, and all of those kids were me.

I didn't want to be them.

With trembling fingers, I threw the gun down the hall in disgust. I could care less that their blood was on my hands. I was like them. Their rude, selfish, violent and putrid ways had rubbed off on me in ways I couldn't put into words.... I didn't want to be them.

I started to run. And run, I did. I had no idea where, but I ran until they caught me.

~~~

Sons and daughters, murdered. People, actual human beings, dead. Their lives were in my hands, and I crushed them like bugs because I could.

Disgusting.
(Myself)

Dead.
(Them)

I'd rather be dead. I'd rather be them.

Had they really gotten to me?

The police didn't kill me. They hardly gave me a chance to breathe. I sprinted out of the school, and one sent a bullet into the back of my leg. The other into my shoulder. It was numb for a matter of seconds, and then it was like somebody had stabbed me with a piece of hot metal. And it was almost literal. What was a bullet than a piece of metal filled with some ashy material?
(A weapon)

They took me in to study me. To poke me with needles and see if I was crazy. To deem me mentally unfit just to keep me away from the society's hungry eyes. They rarely let out any other information about me for the time being, other than, “psychotic,” and, “bullied as a teen.”

People would write books about me one day. Some would despise me. Others would preach what I had done. I wasn't another school shooting. I was better than anyone. To some I was God. Others, I was still garbage. But I had been noticed, and that has made all the difference. I am not nothing anymore. I am a person. I am a person who has made mistakes. Isn't that what everybody describes as having a life? Making mistakes, but those mistakes made turning us into the people we are today?

Isn't that what teenagers are constantly ranting and raving about? That they're making mistakes all the time, but they must accept those mistakes in order to move on?
(Why can't anybody accept mine)

We are developing teenagers, and you will look back on your life and laugh because you know you could have been doing something else. You could have helped that boy being bullied down the hall, or you could have spoken up for the girl who didn't wear makeup. You could have been the difference for the better, and you weren't.

They could have been the difference.
(But it's far too late)

I wondered if the boy from Valentine's day knew that he started all this. Had he learned that since that day, I was a target? Did he feel guilty? Did he even remember me? So many unanswered questions, and only me, left to stew in my own anger, and slight guilt. Being angry at what?
(I don't know)

And guilt from what?
(Who knows)

The world seemed to know what I was feeling. They describe me as on a psychotic break, and at the end of my rope. They say I'm depressed, guilty, angry, sad, happy, full of rage, and possibly crazy.

But how can any of them know what I felt when I hardly know what I felt at the time?

I just knew that I was here. I was here on this planet, living a life where I was only noticed for doing something so drastic.... Is our world only based upon drastic decisions? Are we all going to be insane in the end? Insane from trying to impress others, to live up to unspoken expectations of society. One day, will we all be nothing more but objects, lost in what we call, “life?”

(Chew on that thought)