Small So They Can Fit

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2:32 am.

I finally close my laptop, it was beginning to get hot to the touch. I get out of bed and walk through the darkness feeling my way into the bathroom. My left arm is numb. The blood begins to recirculate as I look at myself in the mirror. I splash cold water on my face and let it sit there. I don’t dry it, and in these moments there is a gripping stillness.

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I was in my bed since 10:30. There is nothing special going on for me tomorrow, but I have butterflies in my stomach. My phone went off 4 times in the last couple hours. I won’t respond to it, I won’t even check.

I know I sound super depressed. That’s really not the case at all. I am however confused, and a bit frustrated. Before I went to the bathroom I listened to “smells like teen spirit” about 5 times in a row. I’ve been on the border of like, everything.

Almost told my best friend of 8 years that I am in love with her.

My iTunes needs to be more adventurous. I’m fucking tired of r & b music.

I’ve been having these mental conversations with my friends. In them I clearly outline the disconnection I’ve been feeling. The self-entitlement we all subscribe to, and tell them that I actually don’t think what we do is fun at all. In truth, I’m bored.

Somehow, on my lips there are 3 smiles and out of my mouth, not a peep.

Instead I keep it cool, you know? Like a product of the times. I figure we’re all for sale and my silence has already been purchased.

My name is Steve Rolland I am bigger than the words I use, the school I ended up at, the girls I sleep with. But I live small so I can fit in.

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I often say, “interesting” in sit-down conversations and at house parties. When I’m around smart people I say ”problematic.” I am rarely cordial with beautiful women because I’ve convinced myself that this is what they want. They want me to be distant and aloof, because it’s chill.

I marginally engage in hot social topics. “Ye racial tensions are high in the US right now, people are just insensitive to the singular story of minorities.” Generalize myself right into my hipster clothes, in irony. I am passionate about the things I’m expected be passionate about, to their most tolerable degrees.

I relate everything back to myself. I usually reply to your deluded narcissism by saying, “Ye it’s the same with me”. Then I relay some story that I think is similar. It’s a stretch. It’s always a stretch.

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I see both sides to every story. I always give my opinion, some neutral diluted opinion that I sparkle up with the 8 new words my social science degree allotted me.

Yes, I’m right here, right fucking here, stuck on the edge.

There’s surrender in my tone of voice, and in my posture. Exhales are now audible, there are bags under my eyes, and the odd heart palpitation. These are symptoms of the silent slavery. I am in bondage and there grows urgency to my pain.

I feel like I’ve “ended up here” in every aspect of my life. No volition of my own. I’ve become everybody and I’ve gone everywhere. I want to go home.

There is a sickness where I sit, a dead air, a decaying stench. And I say to myself, “well at least I’m not alone, at least I’m not alone, at least I am not alone.”

But nobody seems to……………………………………..

I am Steve Rolland and I’m tired of talking.

 

by @sledain

Featuring art work from Murjani Holmes 

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