Darkside

Photo by @ggrassphoto

Sometimes you wonder if you sold out by leaning in to your own nature. 

A model. 

You do other things too, you stay busy, but now your looks are your business. You’ve always been a little vain, but now it pays the bills. 

It’s elegant, in a way. 

You know that big, toothy smiles and curvy bums and dirty blonde n’ beachy hair are marketable assets, so you take a lighter hand and let gene expression just do it’s thing. 

You should be grateful for embodying a popular marketing strategy. 

You are. 

It’s weird though, because the darkness is still enmeshed with your identity. 

The angry gothic teen reeling from compounding family trauma and a series of unfortunate events is still you. 

The deeply depressed, unmedicated, and undersupported college student that swore she would not take her eyes off the ball no matter what, who used weed and exercise to self-medicate so she could graduate only 1 semester late by some miracle is still you. 

The woman that was brave enough to recognize when life wasn’t going in the right direction, made hard decisions, and accepted any uncomfortable consequences as a fair trade-off is still you. 

But most people don’t see that when they look at you. 

And honestly, it’s for the best. 

Older you get, the more ‘healthy’ people you meet, the more you recognize the hurt in yourself. 

At least you’re past feeling ashamed now, it’s almost amusing. 

You haven’t tamed that beast completely, but you live in peace now. 

There is an understanding. You do the talking and the walking. 

But the most unsettling realization of all is the knowing of and even empathizing with ever darker entities. 

You know what’s out there and you’re not afraid for yourself, but for the others. 

The softer ones. You adore them, even though you don’t always agree. 

The question you always comes back to is this: 

Are you more the sum of your experiences or more of who you strive to be each day? 

You like to believe in the latter... But the darkness laughs in defiance.

xx