somehow, I think they went wrong with making me.

it's as if god decided to pop me out as an april fools' joke, as if trying to experiment with the limits of how inadequate he could make a person, except it isn't a joke if it isn't funny.

i want to say that it all boils down to terrible luck. but unfortunately, that's just running away from the real problem.

(from the truth.)

sure, nothing ever seems to go right for me. everything i couldn't finish revising in time happens to come out on exams. i always happen to send messages at the exact moment everyone's going offline, and it's left to bask in all its awkward glory for the rest of the day. my luck pops up and is used up in the most meaningless of things.

but more than that—more than that—

i am the problem.

so i'm not the kindest person. nor am i the smartest, or wisest, or funniest; i can't make a whole room grow and brighten just by stepping in, but—there is no but. there's just nothing good i can think of that's not just a basic human prerequisite.

and everything i try to do falls short for some reason. i can do my best on something, attempt it over and over again until my hands and heart are heavy with scratches and blood, but the best i can produce is a mediocre result that will never please anyone.

even the things i thought i was good at faded over time. i'll hit a block, freeze in my tracks like a deer in the headlights and be unsure of what to do, as if time's frozen around me—no, as if i'm frozen and the world's fast-forwarding itself by hundreds and millions of times—and watch as everything's taken from me.

i tried until there's no use trying, because there's no point and i'll never have a skill i can truly call my own.

it's unfair. i think it's unfair, at least, but there's always a lingering thought that's been drilled into me over and over again: you're just not trying hard enough, you don't have enough passion, you—

i'm sick and tired of hearing that.

all i do is take up oxygen and give out carbon dioxide; all i do is act as a shell that can't even follow orders without screwing something up; all i do is breathe in cold air as if it's acid, day in and day out.

what a life.

and yet, in some tiny, sensible corner of my brain, i know that it's my fault.

i know that. the people who stand at the top have worked hard; probably tens of times harder than me, and in the end, i just look like a whining child.

and that's precisely who i am. a whining child stuck in the body of a teenager, whose screams catch in their throat and whose eyes never dare to water.

i am a failure. even if i don't have much dignity, i still have to salvage what i have left.

even the things i liked to do have turned grey. there is just fuzzy silence and...me, in my whole unkind, flawed, good-for-nothing self, left behind in the dust while the rest flee on ahead to a world i will never reach.

but i will keep—

—breathing.

every tearful gulp of air is another chance for colours to bleed in. every desperate step is another chance to reach the same world as them someday.

it hurts. my heart feels like it's being torn into two. my brain, ever-so-sensible, asks me why i'll do something like take two steps forward when i'll just fall three steps back.

and i have no idea why.

for some reason, i still breathe and run and fall, until all the hope has disintegrated into dust inside the brain of a good-for-nothing human.

--

started out as a vent bc i did badly on first day of bowling comps, but i'm fine now :") dwdw

edit: both this and my random book literally haven't gotten any views/votes/comments for 3 days so i'm wondering if wattpad screwed up or if i'm really that bad :") republishing for now