I ate too much today...

I ate too much today. 
Not food. 
But words. 
From mouths not my own. 
From keystrokes of hands I don’t recognize. 
The feelings of others, like crud, I chewed over. 
The bitter taste of their anger and judgment swirled around on my tongue. 
I swallow. 
They go down hard. 
Foreign bodies not meant for my own. 
They stick to the sides of my throat. 
I gag. 
Regurgitating the thoughts of others onto myself.
They sink beneath me. 
Absorb into my skin. 
They become me. 
What I don’t release back into the world, I ingest. 
I take in those words that hurt my insides. 
Rattling around my body, infecting my mind. 
Poisoning my perception of self. 
I no longer know who I am. 
I’m full. 
Too weighed down by others’ incomprehension of my being. 
Too tired to fight off the assignment of untruths by strangers or the impercipient. 
I let their words digest. 
I let them become part of me. 
If I eat enough, often enough...
I’m afraid I’ll start to get used to the taste.

How often do you take on the perceptions others have of who you are? And who you should be? You wear them like skin, don’t you? I know I do. This isn’t something that I’ll be rid of soon. The pull to be as others are is too great. Especially when so much rides on our ability to conform. This world likes to say it likes it’s people individual, separate, apart from the pack, our differences are what makes us beautiful…only it doesn’t really favor the uniqueness of individuality.

And so I will take on the thoughts of others. Be as they are. Do as they do. I spend so much time trying to be something I am not that I almost forget the person that I am. I sacrifice pieces of myself each and every single day. And I fear that one day, there won’t be much of me left.