I am tired.

I am tired of working so hard at something I will never read again after it’s arbitrarily marked according to how much my teacher does or doesn’t like me. I am tired of writing things I don’t believe and justifying them so that I get an A. I am tired of not having clean sheets everyday of the week because laundry is so expensive and I can’t afford to smile. I’m tired of not having time to think or read or laugh or do anything with pleasure not tainted with urgency and the guilt of knowing I should be doing something more ‘productive’. I am tired of waiting so long for my phone to ring, for it to be somebody with a nice voice, a happy voice, one that doesn’t have pity or sadness or ‘ask what’s wrong’ in it. I am tired of wanting somebody to call so badly and they just don’t get my psychic messages or think I’m crazy for needing to be told a million times a day when I’m sad that yes, somebody outside of my mother loves me. I am tired of nightmares and medicine and aches in my elbows and knees and not ever having a goddamn pen when I need it. I am tired of having to explain every emotion and not just being able to be tired and sad without having a scientific reason behind it that maybe I just can’t explain to somebody who forgets that they were ever just SAD. I am tired of wanting to be surprised and happy and I am tired of the fact that I just keep giving up on ever being surprised and happy. I am tired of having to be playful and happy and sexy and funny and smart every stinking second of the day to SOMEBODY, and I am tired of the fact that I can only be sad and dirty and not sexy and definitely smelly in my dirty sheets alone, when all I have to eat is rice crackers for the fifth time that day. I am tired of always being out of soy milk, and the grocery story always being out of soy milk. I am tired of being told to ‘bear with me’ and ‘deal with it’ and having to smile like I understand when I want to kick you in the shins and scream in your ear and make you cry. I am tired of the fact that there is nothing on the tv but bad news and sadness and the fact that they never seem to catch the one guy bloodied to a pulp in the corner of the picture and say that the pictures are disturbing so we are warned and we look for the disturbing. I am tired of the sadness that everyone pretends I’m the only one that feels and sees, and I am tired of the fact that sometimes I believe them. I am tired of wanting somebody to love me, of being so desperately ashamed that they laugh when I don’t see it, because maybe somebody does. I am tired of never measuring up to anything, except what people think I someday will be. I am so tired that I am afraid that I never will. I am so tired.