Truth

It was there in the darkness of my small oddly symmetrical bedroom, the only gleam of light emanating from around the corner in the hallway, the source being a string of new multi-coloured fairy lights I'd strung up that day; that I saw it for the first time. I heard it audibly it was that clear to me. 
Liar. Incapable. Selfish. Runaway. Fake. Alone. 

This was my nature. The very person I abhor, I am.

I am the man that leaves me. I am the mother that drinks too much. I am the father who doesn't talk. The brother who cuts himself. The friend who doesn't call. The lover who abuses my trust. The one who dies, leaving me in grief. The soul mate who cannot stay until the end.

I am the let down. The one who cannot pull through. Who throws their hands up when the going gets tough. Who points the finger and says "You're not enough". Who proclaims "it's not you, it's me". The one who said "I'm sorry, I just think we are on different paths now". The parent who said "it's good, but you can do better". And then "I'm ashamed of you". And even again, "What's wrong with you?" The one who was prepared to leave you without a goodbye for the sake of their own unhappiness.

That was me. Only I looked like me and not them. I was in-disguise as me, as an original, unique package but if you looked closely there was a tear in the lining and it was starting to peel back, resembling a cheap, over-manufactured copy.

I felt like a rag doll. Tattered, unwanted and full of sweaty coarse stuffing. There were no real blood or guts to me. I had it all backwards;when I was around everybody else I would come to life, the painted red lips would turn upwards at the corners and my eyelashes would batter and please. And when they were all gone, I flopped. Weightless, lifeless, a raggy doll with no one to play with her, and therefore no purpose. A puppet, with no fingers pulling the invisible strings.

In my dark four walls I sat up on hearing the voice, on seeing the face, feeling the tender kiss of the sweet seductive lies I had been telling myself over and over again.

You are in control, you choose, you know what's right. It's what you've always know, so you've always done it. And if you change that, you will lose the very part of you which is you. You will be faceless, no one of any value. You may even cease to exist.

I read once; the truth is the part of you that is never changing. I thought it sounded profound but deceiving. I don't change that one thing and I'll be me forever. That's the way to keep it all together. Don't ever compromise who you are.

I am independent, I am strong and brave. I am vulnerable and loving. These are my blocks. The foundations to who I am. It can only get better.

"So why did you lie?" the voice asked me.
"I didn't." I replied as sure of myself as I was when I spoke my first word to my mother.
"you're lying now," it spat.
"what am I 'lying' about?" I asked defensively. As if this thing would be caught out and leave me alone.
"Say it," it hissed.
"Say what?" I retorted, more annoyed now.
"Say the lie you tell yourself everyday."

I was speechless now. The voice seemed to care selfishly, like it could be set free from the very pits of despair if I said what it wanted me to say.

"I-" I had no words in my mind, total blankness, total space. I opened my mouth again, still clueless. "I'm a liar. I lied. I tell myself everyday. That I am alone."

It left, without a word. Without a face or a warm hand to thank me. It hated me and I hated it.

"I am...a-lon-" I dared to bring it back, trap it inside again. Dam it to a lifetime and beyond of torture. I stopped.
"I am lonely." Nothing. That felt different. The faceless hiss wasn't back. 

I felt empty. Alone. I felt alone. But comforted. A small tingling in the pit of my stomach began to creep up, through my centre, toward my heart and out from my throat.

"I am not alone." I said it out loud. The first time in my life with these lips and tongue. I said it again. It felt good. Not the self-assuring lie that you tell to comfort the pain, but a different good. A light-headed excitement for the first time came over me, I'd felt this before. In the height of an orgasm with a lover when for a moment we had let ourselves into each others universes and there was no fear. In the roar of laughter with a friend after a log absence of each other's company. In the eyes of a baby as it smiled at me knowing something more pure than I did in that moment.

And I laughed. Just once. Then more, until it felt uncontrollable. And I couldn't stop, I didn't want to stop and I didn't have to search for what was still funny. It was funny. So funny it made sense, and no sense all at once.

Then I screamed it out at the top of my lungs, my hands outstretched in awe. I AM NOT ALONE!!!

The laughter stopped and I began to cry. Uncontrollably. The salt water poured like a tap on full throttle. I collapsed on the ground, my bedroom floor had become a plank of wood drifting through an ocean of nothingness.  A million familiar faces passed me, smiling, waving, laughing, crying. Some I knew without knowing how. And some were passed away, some still with me in the current.

My body was still heaving, my face wet with my own fluid. It crossed my mind that I could be crying out every tear I have stored in my body and I may never cry again. And then that's when I felt it. I'd never felt anything more real.

It was everything, every sense I knew and didn't know, I felt it in my bones, in my blood and tissue, in the organs and in the microscopic parts of me that could not be named. Infinite.

I am not alone. I am infinite. I am you. You are me. I am God. God is me. God is you. There is no God. God exists. I am forever. I am the end. I am every one. I am One. Infinite. I'm never alone because there is never just me. And I am forever with you.