who the fuck cares about spiderman
for months, my head hung heavy with the weight of animosity.
each morning, i struggled to get out of bed because i knew i would not only have to look at the mirror and see the mask that seemed almost superglued to my face at that point, but i had to actually go out in public looking so indecent. that people genuinely believed that it was who i am. sometimes i did, too. it’s funny how costumes work. i felt like a kid who wore his spiderman suit every day at school, convinced that’s who he’d be forever. in this case, my demons just happened to be my spiderman. my mary jane just happened to be my utter lack of a sense of self and i just loved her.
villains? nah, this story doesn’t have one but myself. there’s no such thing as a superhero for someone like me. unless, you could possibly count prozac and lamictal as my knights in shining armor. but- there’s no king arthur without a lancelot and a guinevere, right? it could be that you were too busy holding hands with who i was before the depression came crawling back to take me. are you still in love with my ghost? are you searching for the girl i was before something grabbed my by the ankle and dragged me down to the deepest depths of whatever shit was in the sewer below?
i thought you were my hero at one point. but i realized, i’m no damsel in distress. just another person with a past that sometimes haunts me and pulls me into messes that i just can’t seem to clean on my own. and thank god for anything with amphetamine in the title, though. my own personal maid, i tell you what. and that therapist who forces me to actually put the warm water down my face? she’s great, thanks. she tells me i have to unfold my traumas to move forward with whatever i want to in my life. can’t tell if it’s my spidey senses tingling, or what, but i think she’s right. i think, for a long time, i forgot that i was the only person that could be my superhero. call me a heroine, just not a heroin addict, cause i’ve never once touched the stuff in my life- although it’s ruined the lives of so many i’ve held dear. i’ve just always preferred to destroy my life by my own hands, thank you very much.
and it hurts
and it sucks
and it drains the life out of me
and even though i’ve peeled this god-forsaken mask off of my face, remnants of the glue that kept it there still mark my face. i’ll get it off eventually, i assume. because for once in my goddamn life i’m building something with these worn-out fingers of mine. for once, these calloused palms aren’t just from destruction and damage. they tell me that i’m trying. they whisper in my ear and they say, just a few more bricks. so i’ll keep stacking them. brick by fucking brick, i will get closer to stability. i will do it alone.
there is no more mary jane in this story- unless you count the devil’s lettuce. i use it to forget that you were ever my peter parker. it helps me slow down just enough to forget whatever is left of the weak web you had sown into my life, of the thin strands you had called a support. you were supposed to catch me whenever i fell, but i guess sometimes you just have to break your legs on concrete in order to find some sort of truth.
