when you feel alone

When I feel a tight feeling in my throat, a feeling that I am stuck inside and I can\’t get out. When I enclose myself with music–the kind of music that can only be enjoyed with others. When I see two people walk together, happiness in their eyes. When I feel lonely.

I don\’t understand why my need is so strong. It makes me immobile. And yet, there\’s little that I could do to releive my own discomfort. I sleep it away, but it\’s still there. The feeling that I never tried hard enough.

I worry so much about myself. Am I obnoxious? Am I rude? I make jokes and sometimes they miss. Yet when I am at work, I am the one who is called upon. Jenn, where are you. Jenn? Random questions directed to me. I have a good rapport with almost everybody. A smile. A sense.

But I hold myself back in class. I worry that I am not good enough. So I don\’t say anything. I don\’t want to say that I am lost in the class when I am talking to someone who is really doing well. Sometimes I would get too arrognant because I got an A on a paper and my friend got a B. I want to have value.

I can\’t shape my personality in real life like how I shape it online. I control all aspects of my personality online. If I make a mistake, I have made it intentionally. Yet in person, I say too many things I don\’t mean to say. I come off sometimes insensitive. Sometimes overbearing. Sometimes controlling. Maybe this comes from my perception that it\’s always hard to figure out what people saying in person. Their words are meaningless compared to their hand gestures and their posture. Their facial expression tells me more than the sounds coming out of their mouths.

I try, but I refuse to fail.