A Way to Fight

By LQ Aredhel

Sometimes I forget that not all people think like me.

I accidentally just assume that when I make a mistake,

it will be viewed as a mistake

and not an attempt to sabotage the worlds that people build around themselves.

Forgetting myself,

I assume that they view pieces of information and rumors

as pieces of a whole,

clues to a picture they haven’t seen,

but this is often not the case.

They see the shred of paint as the art form itself,

the entire history of the people

who created the color.

And what am I to do?

Play by their rules?

Cast my body and soul into a world

that sees me as the scrap of painting,

and the words of another about me as the full picture?

Do I stand aside and bear their scrutiny

as it tears at the flesh of my trust,

my surface emotion,

until there is nothing left to bite at,

and I am left alone,

the only conscious witness and victim to their teeth?

I find myself somewhere in the middle of these two scenarios,

being pushed and pulled by my own will

while my mind searches frantically for a third road:

a way to fight.