Shame

Just a something I wrote last night

When we are born, our circumstances are set by random. Parents, financial status, race, gender, and environment. Even so, all of this shapes how we act, how our emotions run, and the way our brains think.

For me, my life was shaped by shame. A shame that runs deep in the circuitry of my brain — that screams at my heart to cower, that claws its way out of my stomach and leave bloodied marks in its linings — in order to control me.

When I rolled the dice and came into this world, I saw no "bad luck" that would lead to this. I smiled in family and vacation photos, I drew terrible photos of myself in crayon and pencil, even played on the beach like any other kid. My mother worked hard and so did my aunt, yet we still went on vacations and had blasts doing this and that. Relatives said I brought color to the family, some adored me as our grandpa's reincarnation, as superstitious people do.

One day, shame crept up. It came in the form of my aunt, and let me feel its dread for the first time. Shame was a creature that changed forms as much as it pleased, and before it hid in my aunt, it was in her mother, her mother's mother, and even further down back.

The process of shame is as follows: First, it weakens and softens your skin, not breaking through just yet. Then, when your skin can bruise from just a bit of mockery, it pierces through and into your muscle. Skin, muscle, bone, and then your brain, and finally, it becomes you.

From then on, it doesn't take the form of anything else. Rather, it swirls and swims in your body, becoming your eyes and ears, thoughts and feelings - and your very existence. Shame warns you to stay away from people, things and hobbies, to delude your world in its fantasy.

Yet, the worst part is people don't look at you and see someone in shame, no, they see no one at all. Because you are the only one who can see it.

So for the last stage before you die off, you are nothing but a piece of shit loser. You go to school and worry about how people think of you - In everyone's eyes, here stands an incapable human who cannot talk to people. Your stories makes no sense, your words make no sense. People mock you, because they don't see the shame behind your actions, and that is how shame kills you. You will not be saved.