The Bullet Biter

We are slaves to people’s validation, painfully waiting for someone to determine our worth. We deny who we are, shaping ourselves into the unachievable ideals that someone else has set for us. We refuse to believe that we’re good until someone else tells us so.
You’re too stupid or too nerdy. Too solemn or too playful. Too fat or too thin.
Your accent is too strong or too fake. Your clothes are too colourful or too dull. Your work is too derivate or too obscure.
We waste all our energies on trying to convince someone else that we are important, that we are deserving of attention, consideration and, ultimately, love.
And what are we, in the end?
We are ghosts, blurred reflections of our past selves. Disfigured, scarred, amorphous beings who are too scared of being themselves, too reluctant to own their flaws, too weak to challenge the blindness of these vulgar misconceptions.
We want to be part of the game, imploring to be chewed by a world that is eager to spit us.
We’re at the bottom of the py…

Iris had listened attentively to all his words, her face covered by a veil of graceful melancholy. 
She paused for a second, trying to compose herself. 
She glanced at the mountains, their geometric silhouettes calmly burning in the indigo sky, then took his hand: “Gaining a clearer understanding of the world and how it works is a paradoxically confusing experience. I have always assumed that, as you get older, you kind of learn to figure stuff out, you find the key to handle life, you finally take control.
As it turns out, growing up is a painful experience. Or at least it has been for me. You slowly strip yourself of layers of childish obliviousness. The same obliviousness that protected you from the harsh realities of an often unpleasant world. Once you leave it you’re naked, vulnerable, exposed.
At first, it’s just a crack, almost invisible to the human eye. The years go by and the cracks extends, it widens, it splits you in the middle. Before you know it, you’re broken,” she said…