Losing

I’m losing right now.

At this point in my life, I’m losing. I’m losing at who I want to be, where I want to be, and what I want to be. I’m losing.

Each time I close my eyes, this battle is all I can see. My mind pulsates, asking for more. Needing more. Call it restlessness, yet trust me, I want nothing more to be at rest. But I’m losing. How can I lead a normal life while I’m losing?

Spacing out. Mindlessly moving. Being in the present and the past and the future all at the same time. People say they want to see inside my mind but really they have no idea what it’s like. To be constantly moving anywhere and everywhere all at once. Losing. I don’t remember anymore what it’s like to win.

Do you think it’s peaceful to win? Or is it easier to not care at all? I can’t stop caring if I tried, it’s just not me. Do I even want to stop caring? Maybe caring makes me who I am.

I don’t get the people who losing doesn’t seem to affect at all. The people who seem indifferent to this competition that is life. What type of breed of human are you? Tell me do you go home in a corner, turn off the lights, and cry about your pain? Because then I’d believe your existence. How do you turn off the pain in your head?

Fucking losing. Physically, It makes my jaw clench. My hand forms into a fist ready to swing at the imaginary opponent in my mind. My posture straightens, my body bracing for impact. My eyes open wide to feel the world, to feel the pain. My body comes to the present, while my mind is anywhere but.

Imagine an empty room floating in the air. The room contains no windows, no doors, no beds, no individuality. The only semblance of life in that room is a figure in the corner, his head tucked into his stomach while his arms squeeze his legs. From the figure’s back emerges wings of wax, tarnished and no longer usable. They simply serve as reminders of what could have been—a reminder of the freedom he should’ve had. That is what losing feels like to me in my head. Isolated and soulless.

So when the people around me take losing in life so easily in stride, that figure in that room yells his heart out to be heard to no avail. He asks, “Do you not feel like me? My pain, my misery?”

Everyday that figure in that room bangs on the walls that confine him in that cage. He begs to see the light outside, to outstretch his wings and fly away. Each day becomes a battle, that while he loses, he fights nonetheless. Because not trying guarantees losing. It guarantees confinement in that hopeless cell. Fighting gives you a distraction from the pain. It gives you hope.

Dum Spiro Spero. While I breath, I hope.

While we breath. Each of us hopes to escape that room. We hope to be seen. To be heard. To stop fighting. To stop losing.

It feels like everyday the walls of that room get smaller. That each day, moving around and fighting becomes harder. Dum Spiro Spero. I’m trying.