I don’t belong here.
It has been the resounding theme of my life.
Unliked. Unwanted. Not like them.
Not trusted. Not accepted. Not belonging.
I want to be liked.
I try to fit in.
They allow me…
Because it is Christian.
Because I am… family (of a sort.)
But not because I belong.
I don’t.
First they let me know;
By glances and actions rather than words.
I try harder, and harder still.
And rather than improve their acceptance of me –
It gets worse.
They don’t want me there, and…
I wish I could be a person who doesn’t care.
But of course I care.
I’ve always cared.
Yet if I can’t be accepted,
My impulse is to run.
Maybe another school,
Another group,
Another part of town?
Maybe another province,
A city where I have never been?
But wherever I go,
Whatever I do,
There I am:
Not belonging.
So I build these worlds.
These fantasies in my mind.
And the more pain my reality contains,
The further from reality my fantasies take me;
Until there is little left
To bring joy or relief
In the world around me.
So much fear.
So much pain.
I would spend most,
If not all of my life,
Dreaming;
Just to endure it.
But the older I get,
The less the dreams satisfy;
For I know my dreams,
These fantasies,
They won’t come true.
I return to a world that feels hostile to me.
Alone and fearful and full of pain
Thinking “maybe if I try harder,
Try harder,
Try harder…”
But the harder I try,
The less I belong.
I wish I didn’t care,
But I do.
I am still nothing more than that small child,
Crying to sleep at night
For being abandoned in a big, frightening, painful world
That never wanted her.
