Like I Don't

It’s funny how I don’t feel like much of a story this morning. Outside the air is crisp while the sound of “Murder She Wrote” drowns out everything inside. So I sit at my station, a long plastic table that I pretend to be a desk. But at least it doesn’t pretend to be wooden or anything else but what it is…a cheap plastic table. Sipping on a cold cup of decaf, I pound away on the keys of my keyboard making that annoying clicking sound. Much like my own voice I kept silent from abuse.

I think of myself as a trickster, fooling everyone into believing everything rolls off my back. But in reality it couldn’t be farther from the truth. For I am a troubled man just beneath my skin. Much of my life was lived hiding the pain of troubled youth. Never fitting in with the other kids in my neighborhood. I was the butt of every joke. From my nervous tick of a laugh, to being overweight, and not being very athletic. The cool kids of the neighborhood knew I didn’t fit in and were more than happy to let me know. I’m sure I would have been diagnosed with some A.D.D.H.I.P. if there were such a thing back then. Instead I was told by my parents to “suck it up buttercup” and take it like a man. 
 
So I sit here with my legs crossed staring out the window at a clear blue sky. Thinking I should put away these thoughts and just go out. But on a holiday weekend that’s probably what everybody else is doing. So I imprison myself within these plain beige walls, without as much as a picture hung-up. I guess it’s all because this all still feels so unreal. Looking out over the apartment building that so many take for granted. I feel so unworthy that I just don’t belong here. Knowing good and damn well that I deserve this but still feeling like I don’t.