It's Supposed To Be Sunny

Hello.

That is how people who aren't acquainted with other people start off conversations. At least, it's the proper way to. Let me try to do something right before I do everything wrong.

Here, shake my hand. I'm sorry if it's trembling. I tremble without knowing why and without being able to control it. If it freaks you out a little, that's okay. It freaks out other people, too. They ask are you cold and I say no, I'm not and they say, then why are you shaking and I say I don't know, I just do and before they attempt to wipe away the conversation like it never happened, I'm able to catch flecks of repulsed confusion in their eyes.

When I see the flecks, I begin to talk. About anything. Everything. The poster over there, the coffee they're holding, the reason there are words written on my wrist. Anything to make them forget that I was shaking, to make them consider salvaging their opinion of me. All the while, I am silently carrying on another conversation.

Just give me another chance, please. Just let me show you that I'm not all freak. Just let me talk enough to drown the parts of me that you don't like. Just let you remember the words more than you remember me. Because if you talk about the words later, I don't care. But if you talk about me later, I will care. I will care very much.

And as they watch me talk, their smiles return. They watch me as my harmless thoughts bounce against each other and spill out of my mouth awkwardly, and they smile because they realize that probably there is nothing dangerous in me. Probably I was only shaking because I am cold and stumbled because I didn't want to admit it.

Sometimes I look at my friends and wonder if they'd still like me when I have no words to say. Because that's me, too. The wordless me is just as much a me as the one that everyone calls sunshine, only everyone does not see her.

Well, aren't you cheerful

they say, and I smile and say why shouldn't I be? And they smile as I leave, and for a moment I maybe believe that I am sunshine and the other me is what my parents call a stage and I have finally gotten through it.

Until the sun sets and I am alone in my bedroom. And the dull knife beckons from the top of my bookshelf. And I can't shake the feeling that there is something in my closet, more than shadows and clothing behind the curtain that separates me from it. And I know that what I am is not a stage I am going through; it is only me returning to being myself because I don't need sunshine to protect me when the real sun is on the other side of the world.

Sometimes sunshine makes me angry. Because she is a lie, I think. How can sunshine spend hours tracing a blade across her wrists, pressing just enough for the blade to sting but not enough to leave an imprint that will show in the morning? Sunshine does not do these things. Sunshine wouldn't.

So then I think maybe I am not sunshine. Maybe sunshine is a lie. And that person that everyone loves and believes in is not me; she is a foul thing that I've created. And someday, when sunshine dies because I've used her too much and tired her out, everyone will see what I've written obsessively about in my battered spiral notebooks and they will know there never was a sunshine. There was only a broken mirror reflecting someone else's light.

I'm sorry. Maybe I've said too much. I'm always saying too much. I'm always saying too much and that's the problem of it all.

But they like sunshine! She's the girl they know. They've grown to understand her and think that maybe she is partially insane and scatterbrained, but she's not threatening. They call me things like outgoing and say that she has a big personality and oh, don't worry about her. She's just a little bit eccentric.

But if I let sunshine die, they would say other things. They would want me to talk about things that I cannot talk about because it will make you feel better once you've let it out. They will say things like there is nothing wrong with you. We just want you to talk to this man because he is used to listening to stories like yours, and he will help you understand.

But I do understand. I understand that there is something wrong with me. And the wrong thing is that I am me. All of these things that are me are things that no one wants to hear about, so I've done the smart thing and built myself a suit of armor.

Sometimes, when I'm alone with my best friend, I am quiet. I do not say anything, and I sit silently, shaking. I show the me that has nothing to say for just a little while, just to see if maybe I am tricking myself and sunshine doesn't matter the way I think she does.

And it's like I don't exist. My friend picks up her phone and begins texting someone I've never met, a person I only know because of the details she's let me in on. And I slump, silently willing her to just look at me. To look at me and maybe talk to me. To maybe say something I genuinely want to talk about, not something sunshine would find interesting. Like

Do you know what it feels like to die?

or

Do you ever walk outside at night and let the darkness wrap around you? And you raise your neck like a wolf and howl? And you pretend that you are not in your body? Do you ever do that?

But she is quiet. She doesn't speak to me until I bring sunshine back. And when I finally do, she turns to me, and I see in her eyes that she is remembering that I was ever there at all.

I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. What did you say?

Oh...nothing. Just talking to myself.

Oh. Remember that guy I was telling you about earlier? He called me earlier...

I think that I have said enough now. I have said enough because I am starting to shake, and when I am shaking, it is harder for me to hold on to sunshine.

If this is what happens to me when I write about who I am when I am not sunshine, what would happen if I spoke about me when I am not sunshine? Maybe I would start shaking so much that the world would shake with me, and there would be a catastrophic earthquake. And everyone that ever was would point at me and scream horrible things because they would know that I caused it. And the sounds of their voices would stream into my ears, filling my body until it was too much for me to handle and there would be a burst of light like the kind that killed the dinosaurs and I would be gone.

And maybe it would be better.

Oh, you have to go? I'm sorry. I've kept you too long. Please have a nice day. It's supposed to be beautiful out; I read the weather forecast earlier in the paper. It's supposed to be sunny.