-Dedication: To the persona. To the mask. And to Carl Jung

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” -Oscar Wilde

What Did They Do to Me?

By: Georgia Meyers

  I am not myself…my face is not my face. I am a mere illusion in this cruel world. Looking in the mirror, I see myself, but this self is so very tired. They have dark circles and a sad smile, and they never stop crying. This Self has holes and so many blades of glass stabbed in its back. Its eyes are an oily black with a spark of light that faintly gives a glow. How this Self has become a sad monster is quite depressing, and I wanted to see this one grow. 

  I pick up my “make me normal” pills that sit on my tarnished vanity. I swallow the amount the doctor prescribed. Ah, that is better, now I can be like everyone else. My skin starts to shape and mold to the ideal form. My eyes become the ideal blue, and my hair is the perfect shade of blonde. I pick up my idealistic clothes that lay on my disheveled floor, a basic cotton tee-shirt, sweatpants, and Ugg boots.  

  When I walk out the door and turn around to shut it, I see the person I want to be standing in the hall. The blood of this person coats the walls, and the ghostly screaming to be let out haunts the halls. It is a nightmare and a nightmare only I see. Others never see the bodies of the versions of myself I have in my basement. They never see the torment for conforming. I am awake to this fact but quite dead at the same time. I have killed more than my mind but also my soul.

  No more looking inside, it is time to go to work, I have no time to dilly dally. We must all arrive at eight sharp or we will get punished for not performing like those who had arrived on time. To survive in this world, I must be like others, and others must be like me. I must keep this persona up. It would be death if I stepped out of line. I walk on the perfectly even sidewalk, one foot after the other. The world is always sunny and the houses look the same. Each house is identical to the next and hides identical secrets inside.

  The same gray color of siding and the same brown roofing that lines the perfect block. The houses are all linear and liminal with the same frame that has one small garage, a small porch and a basketball hoop. The roads lead to the offices, where everyone must work. You must have the job that society assigns you when you are born. 

  I reached the smaller office complex, it is now 7:50. Ten minutes, that is all I have. I hop on the elevator and take it to the ninth floor. I step onto the office floor, and everyone looks the same; we all wear sweatpants, a cotton tee, and Uggs. 

  When they see me, they all stand up and say, “Good morning, 2958, you have arrived on time. How are you?”

  It is quite uncanny to see the same faces all with the same smile but I digress and reply with,”Good morning everybody, I am good. How are you all?”

  “We are good. Get to work and run this rat race,” they all speak and then turn around, sit, and go back to work. I sit and do my job. I don’t even get paid because we are supposed to be all the same. When the clock strikes 9 o’clock, we all head home to our identical dinners and houses that the society has prepared for us. 

  I sit at my broken table waiting for my meds to wear off so that I can ravage the food in front of me. Everyone has the prescription and must take it. We must be the same. Then the first wave of nausea hits, and I keel over and heave stomach acid on the floor. The bones of my body snap and bend, black tears fall out of my eyes, my hair becomes oily and black, and so do my eyes. I look at the mirror in the room, and I see the monster I have created. The shards of glass stabbed in my back slide deeper into my skin, and I cry out in sheer despair. The voices of myself that I have killed echo on the walls. 

  I stand up and feast on the food prepared for me- an undercooked steak, a carrot, and a thing of sliced rotten apples. The food is subpar to my usual basement meat that I have stored down there, but I eat it anyway.  The lamp flickers and the screaming will not stop! I am so sick and tired of listening to the voices! Why do I have to hear them! Why do I have to kill my soul!

  I grasp my head so hard that my warped fingernails punches through my skin and reddish black drips from my temple in a steady cadence. My chest aches from the shards of glass that slide deeper into my back. Drip…Drip…..Drip.  I find the mettle to stand. 

  Drip..drip..drip. The blood pours on the floor vigorously and without a doubt I am going to die. The screams grow so close and the versions of which I was stand in a circle 

  “YOU KILLED YOU! You killed yourself! Monster!! Why do you think you feel empty when you take those idiotic pills?  You are like everyone else! You would rather sit and try to be perfect than face the truth of the inequality which the world has created for a reason. Systems are meant to weed out imperfection! Systems want conformity and blindness to the truth!

  Everyone gives up their truth and justice just because they don’t want to feel ashamed of being different! You fear your own self that is why you must kill us. You fear not having control of being like everyone! You fear every version of you that shows that you’re different.” they all say at the same time. One by one they all pull me down to the floor and push the shards deeper into my torso. I scream.

  “You have silenced us enough! We have screamed and begged you to let us out! We are tired of being ignored,” they scream. Every person holding me down has my soul and every person is a version of me. I am broken. Society has broken me. Why…why did I have to try and be the same? Why couldn’t society love me? Why did I have to hide? 

  Rip…snap…beat…silence. The shards of glass have ripped me open raw. My eyes face all the ghosts of myself.  Nothing is safe, nothing is happy when you are not free. I am going to die locked in a cage of society’s making. They all give me a sad smile.

  “If you had listened to us, you would have been free. Why didn’t you listen to what mattered most?” they said.

  If life was easy I would have found more of a reason to care about myself. I had no option, the systems had me beat. The rat race became too hard and I was shamed and blamed for being so different. Drip…Drip…drip.

  “I have nothing to say. I did what I did ,and there should be no shame. I wanted to survive in a world which is created to make you fail. I wanted to be different but the difference causes you to end up dead. Do you know what the governments and societies do to people like me? I bet you don’t. I am sorry I killed you, but it was a matter of survival. My life may have been a waste. Individuality is dead and so is God.” I sob. They stand around me and wait. They know it’s time to go and save me from this place. I have been censored long enough ,and it’s time to find my own place.  Drip..drip..stop.  The body which was never me lays still on the floor and ripped open raw. Although reader, I need to tell you more.  

  Reader, I speak to you and tell you to wake up from this rat race. My fate will be your future if you don’t believe me. I was a victim of the systems and just like me, take your pills, buy those shoes, make sure to be cool. This world is full of systems and destruction don’t you see. The systems will fail you but that is okay. I am telling this story and believe me it’s already here. The same shorts, the same shoes, everyone is the same. The systems, the power-hungry sharks and corporations funding the machine. 

  They want obedience. They want you to think you’re free. They build society to lead the sheep to slaughter. They poison the food, they poison our water. They even poison each other for more power. Wake up, Reader! Society is collapsing, can’t you see?