I’m Not Special

Children waiting for the day they feel good-

Happy birthday,

Happy birthday…

I always thought I had the worst life in the whole world. Poor little me with the perfect family I can’t stand, the high grades I can’t live up to, the popularity I hate, the sweet friends I despise, the prettiness that hid my fat, the perfect little life that’s secretly being ripped apart by the hatred within me… You didn’t. You saw my life and who I was and you hated me for it. You hated me for being the funny one, the clever one, the one who always stood out in a crowd but didn’t get shunted for it. I could see it in your eyes when you stared at me, when you thought I wasn’t looking; when you stared at me, when I wasn’t looking, I could see death in your eyes, and it scared me.

                But you know what? I think I hated you too. Always competing for the top of the castle, I got there first, and you hated me for it, and I hated me for it too. I never did like being at the top. Always been afraid of heights, me. And you think I enjoyed it? All the attention I didn’t think I deserved? It was terrifying. And every night I’d come home after a day at school of fucking praise, and I got my knife and we laughed together for a while. The knife. The only thing that didn’t lie to me, the thing that told me the truth, told me how fat and ugly and horrible and stupid and two-faced and arrogant and ripped me apart, just the way I wanted it to. My only friend.

                It was my birthday a few weeks ago. Our friends from school came and we went into town. Gemma bought me a skirt while we were in there as a present for me. It’s a deep dark pink, if you can imagine that. Just above my knee, yeah, it does look a little slutty, but at least I can admit that. Then we went to the park and bought burgers and played on the swings and the roundabout faster and faster flying off the edges slurring everything ignoring everything thinking about nothing not even you. Then of course Tony threw up, so we sat him down on a bench and just sat there talking for ages. When it got dark we walked back, everyone going home their own ways. I thought about going home, but somehow I ended up on your road, outside your house, knocking on your door. The world revolving around you I hadn’t realised it.

                “Mad World” by Gary Jules. That was the song I heard blasting through the house when your mother opened the door, in her dressing gown, obviously ruffled by the tears strained on her shocked face. She mouthed one word at me and I was up those stairs in a flash. Your bedroom. Clothes thrown randomly all over the place, just the way you liked it, you said. The socks I bought you for your birthday as a joke, yellow and red, with “shit happens” written on them, lying in the centre of your neat and tidy death bed. I ran to the bathroom and stopped, falling to the floor as I saw your body, neat and tidy, slumped against the wall, eyes staring straight at me, eyes full of death, face as pale as the paint on the peeling walls.

                You never turned up to my birthday party. We were talking about you, in the park. Always talking about you, you never realised it. Wondering why you hadn’t come the girls said you were just being a bitch and the guys said maybe you couldn’t be bothered to get me a present but all of them loving you. We all loved you. And you were a bitch for not realising it. And you did get me a present. You got me what we both thought we wanted but never realised would tear us apart.

                I always loved you. Through the competition, the jealousy, the lies, the hatred, I know you loved me too. Your dark hair, black as the cold winter skies, haunted my dreams for a while. That black ripped through the balloons and consumed everything in its path, taking over. You wanted me dead as well. You wanted to take away what you hated of yourself – and you wanted me to follow afterwards. And your deep brown eyes that on occasion seemed almost purple. Those eyes scarred with hatred for me; for the me that reflected what you hated most of yourself.

                The candles blow lavender across to my cheeks and float against them. I can feel the dead calling to me, I can see your eyes challenging me across the river. “Mad World” plays loud from my pathetic £30 CD player. I can see the knife lying across from me. Always always lying. Lie to my face again, as we always did, playing around each other in the playground, touching each other’s blackened hair, running away and running back playfully. It’s all just a game. That’s all it ever was between us.

                The blood spills over you, drenching your beautiful hair, streaming down your perfect cheeks and your long slender eyelashes as you blink up at me pleadingly. The blood spills out of your eyes, spills over you and me, and all ends, all goes blank. I hated you, and now we can be together forever. I love you so much. Never leave me again.