Starfish

Eka, 10th - United States

Everywhere - all around me, within me - there’s a cold incentive. A relentless force that seems to believe nothing is impossible. A force I never asked for. I feel as though I am fighting against the laws of gravity. Higher and higher above, I try to grasp this nameless force, but it slips like water through my fingers. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve carried this certainty about my future. Not unachievable dreams, no grand plans - just certainty. I’ve never been in need of guidance on where or how to start, I’d just dive in deep, head first, body slowly sinking after. 

Please do not be mistaken. I do not exceed at school by any means, I do not utilize my potential. I never ask the right questions or apply the theories we learn to real life. I am not failing school either, I’m smart but never the smartest. I am floating somewhere in the middle, like a fish in a pond, circling, circling. Never out. Never free.

No one has truly understood me. Maybe that’s normal. Perhaps no on ever really understands anyone. But what I think hurts the most, isn’t that nobody gets me, it’s that no one even tries to. I suppose I am easily forgotten; in a crowded room, I’d never be the first glance. I am always the backup but never the first choice. I love everyone so much so that they could literally be a killer who’s on the loose and I’d still do anything for them. But somehow, this unconditionality of love doesn’t work both ways. People come to me for advice but for some god foreseen reason I can’t be the one who receives it. I am always a star, never the sun. Always a participant never first place. Always the funny friend, never the pretty one. Always an angel, never a God.