Life scares me. People scare me. The things I see scare me. And it has always been that way, for as long as I can remember. Something changed for me though, eleven years ago, when I finally realized no one else could see like me. No one else can see their wings. Just me.
I try to go on with my life like normal, and I’m getting so much more used to the way I have accepted it’s going to be from now on. I tried to tell people about things I see a long time ago, when I was so much younger, and of course the first thing they did was put me on medications and started throwing my life to thousands of therapy sessions, all at the age of ten.
Of course nobody believed me. Why should they? I wouldn’t believe myself either.
I can see things, find things, notice things, that shouldn’t be here. This is the twenty-first century, right? People shouldn’t be still believing this. Nobody else does.
I grew up, living elementary years always chattering about things that scared the teachers. They didn’t like hearing about my deductions of my peers based on what their wings looked like; tinged blue, tinged red, sometimes pure white. My frequent visits to the principal’s office for kids and teachers both complaining about how I scared them. Because, of course, they couldn’t see them, so I was just a freak, a small boy who wanted attention. Even my parents got fed up with me. Doctors sent me to new therapists. I finally started saying I couldn’t see the wings anymore. I was finally free from those terrified gazes, people thinking I was a little demonic child. But only metaphorically. Because demons and angels, and especially their wings, don’t exist to people trying to live normal lives. Only the religious church-goers and their priests.
I used to go with my family. There was a small church down the street from us. But once I started talking about wings and different kinds of angels, my parents quit. It surprises me still to this day, because isn’t that where they should go to pray about my possible demon? Instead they forgot about everything religious, as if trying to shield me from anything that might spur me even further.
I was kept inside all the time, my parents never really talked to me, so my older sister would have to fight to hang out with me on weekends when she was home from college. I was only allowed out for the therapy visits.
So I finally gave up, at age thirteen, and told my parents, sister, and therapists that the wings didn’t show anymore. I was finally free.
So I continued to high school, where most people didn’t remember me from elementary, I graduated, and I went to college, here in a small seaside town in California. I live with my cat, my dog, my tea, and no parents up my ass about any “paranormal wings.” I’m basically happy.
Just forget about the fact that three semesters into college, I dropped out. And don’t mention that my sister moved across seas to move in with her fiancée, an Army officer stationed permanently at a base in Italy. I miss her. I do. And I honestly feel a bit jealous of being left behind to take care of myself and two parents that are starting to find even more disappointment to throw at me as I become the disaster they always knew I’d be.
Does that sound bitter?