The In-between :

There are good days and there are bad days and then there is this.
  The good ones are hazy. A summer spent. A scent registered. A smile lingering and then fading until its very existence becomes a question.

  The bad ones are sharp. A stabbing chest pain. The taste of tears remaining on your lips. The hopelessness that grows to engulf every passing second.

Then there are these.
Neither hazy nor sharp.
Not lingering and most definitely not fading.
Just there.
Existing.

One moment its a day. Regardless of its torrent of sentiments , just a day. But then its not.
  Your head spins. Once. Twice. And then it stops. Or maybe you're just so used to it to be able to tell a difference? Maybe you're already too far gone.
  But hold up. There's voices. Why are they so slow though? What are they saying? But more importantly : why don't you care?

Perhaps its something out of your area of interest.
Then where is your usual reaction?
  The rolling eyes. The bated breath. The imperceptible twitch in your wrist as you check the time for the fifteenth time. Your hitched laughter and plastered smile barely veiling your desire to be elsewhere.

(I swear if they start debating about who uses auto-tune again , I will go insane.)

  Wait. They're talking about something else. You try to listen. You have something to say. You could say it. Just open your mouth.

Just do it. You've never hesitated before.
  The moment passes and the words die on your tongue. You swallow your thoughts and relish their sickening thud against your heart.

A moment. You just need a moment. To figure out a problem.
Which problem?
A broken promise? An unexpected betrayal? A sudden death?
What problem?
Nothing.

(When you attempt your physics test after pulling up an all-nighter)

Nothing is wrong.
Then why do you feel this way?
You rub your eyes to gain a semblance of normalcy.
They're too dry.
You watch with a muted sense of awe as everyone around you bursts into fits of laughter. Shouldn't you be laughing too?

(Nailed it.)

All you can seem to focus on is yourself.
Your heartbeat feels too slow.
Your facial muscles taunt from being forcefully held in place.
Your limbs heavy and unmoving.
Your blood gyrating to a sluggish beat.
Your thoughts lead and your touch poison.
Inhale. Exhale.
You try to outrun the realization but your energy won't allow it.

Its that day today.
You crave nothing.
You feel nothing.
Maybe you are nothing.
If numbness could be considered an emotion you'd be feeling the most you've ever felt right now.

(Personally I just feel that expression is disrespectful to the food.)

  With apathy slowly seeping into you and making everything secondary, you want to give up but you have nothing to give up.
In a world of black and white you want to fight, but there's nothing to fight for.
Your ending should mean something , but meaning has lost every possible meaning.

There's good and there's bad and then there's nothing.
There's attraction and there's repulsion and then there's apathy.
There's wrong and there's right and then there's indifference.
There's euphoria and there's devastation and then there's something else.

This is the in-between.
No degrees here. Nothing worthy enough of being measured in relativity and caged by words. Nothing of substance.

(Yes, I did read All the bright places.
Yes, it was over a month ago.
No, I'm still not fine.)

And yet it's something.
Because you choose to stay.

Sometimes there truly is nothing to keep us.
But we still choose to stay.

You dance through the glee , claw your way out through darkness and float in nothingness and you still choose to stay.
That is what makes you special. Not your even skin tone. Not even your exceeding friend requests. But your battle with your in-between.


No one else will ever tell you this because no one else will ever understand in-between.
But I do, so I will:
Your in-between does not define you.
Your in-between is not your fault.
Your in-betweens are something you'll always have to fight alone.
Your in-between will always pass.

This is in-between and it's nothing but its also everything.

Because at the end of the day I won't seek comfort in my trophies. I won't seek validation in the eyes of onlookers. I won't turn to the relations I've spent a lifetime forging.

(One does not argue with Theodore Finch.
Just NO!
*sobs for an eternity*)

At the end of the day , I'll be proud of my in-betweens.
I'll be prouder of my choice to stay.
And I'll be proudest of this knowledge. The knowledge that even as I lived among people who couldn't fathom me in the very least , I endured.
Even as I was criticized for eluding sense , I managed to hold my brain intact.
I stood my ground even when I had nothing to fight for.
I held on even when there was nothing to hold on to.
I pulled through.
So can you.