Mimic: the action or art of imitating someone or something.
As I rode the bus I couldn't help but realize that it had been the only stagnant thing during my entire experience of school; even now, as I returned from school break with spirit week around the corner it still remained the same unchanging anchor. The same speed bump driven over, the same sharp turn, and the same blaring horn 5 years past its expiration date. It all remained the same, unchanging and unaltered.
It had also brought another thought, a word to be exact, one that held great significance and deep meaning in my life.
"Mimicry"
People say copying is an inherently negative quality to do, that it expresses laziness and a lack of creativity from a person. I'd say it also expresses escapism and fear.
The escape of being yourself, of accepting yourself, and the fear of being found lacking of a perceived version that others have of you. That was the kind of Mimic I was. Shattering and altering myself in fear of never being accepted and found lacking in others perceived value of me.
To this day. I am still a mimic.
Chipping away at the statue of myself until the original design had been lost to the void, and in its place a mockery of everything I had tried to be, a transformation going merely surface deep. If one were to stare upon the edifice of my creation, they would merely see an amalgamation of poorly crafted details; a hunched shoulder here, another rounded out and protruding with confidence there, a neutral frown, an egotistical smile, a corked eyebrow, a fake laugh, a swaggering leg, a shuffling foot, a head raised with the future on its brow, and another lowered in awkward self-contemplation.
I had chipped, and chipped at myself until nothing of the original me remained. In its place, a cobbled-together tapestry of what I had perceived as acceptance had taken over like a festering root.
— — — — — — —
The cafeteria was a place that turned my stomach into a nest of coiling serpents, leaving a self constricting ball of anxiety in the pit of my core.
It was a place where those of similar interests gathered, to indulge together in like-minded subjects and topics within their own safely protected sanctums.
It was also my kryptonite. A place where all my efforts of fitting in could be unraveled under the most minute of pressure. For no matter how convincing a mask appeared to be it was just that, a mask. The things I had forced myself to learn were only skin deep, just enough to pass under the simplest of gazes, but if ever called out directly would shatter like obsidian glass.
To avoid such a calamity I chose a table away from everyone. It was quiet, isolated, and by the main entrance for a quick escape. A place where no one sat.. except for today. Someone else had beaten me to it and now I was left with a dilemma, gazing about to find another lone island only to be met with failure for they all were taken.
I can't recall the order of events on who had started the first conversation. Had it been me? My attempt at a set of carefully crafted questions and docile words to ascertain what mask would fit this situation best in the hope I could skate by without being discovered? Was it him? in an attempt to break the glacier of silence that had swallowed the table? Though part of me believes it had something to do with the picture of a red cloaked figure with a toaster in its robotic hands set as his wallpaper and why he brought an actual toaster to school…
Whoever had initiated it was irrelevant now, they had opened the gates and unleashed a tidal way of events that I couldn't have seen coming. As if the world had been flipped upside down, that glacier of silence had melted away into a tsunami of passion as he began to explain a universe called "Warhammer 40k"
As I watched him babble on and on I could only stare in silent fascination. The more he spoke the more I became enthralled. His explanations were poorly done, rushed, sloppy, unstructured, and crude, but with each word spoken in the weaving of this convoluted disorganized mess of a story, there was something that emerged ahead of it all… purity and love. Every word was spoken with love and care, every backtrack leading to another random pivot of a loosely connected plot so I could get the "full picture". Each side-way branch leading to further redoubling for the next one and so forth and so forth.
By the end, I could make neither head nor tails of things. It was comparable to being strapped to a v8 engine and let loose on the tracks after downing half a bottle of Hennessy. ' Super soldiers, Demigods, actual gods, fake gods, space wizards, elves, green frat boys, immortal Egyptian machines, knight Mecha, spiraling cities touching past the clouds.' It sounded like someone had taken every stray idea possible and mashed it together in some amalgamation of a story with no restraint… but the love for it was felt with every word and the more he spoke the more it drew me in.
Before I knew it time had come and gone in a blur of wild tales and ludicrous stories that I had fully submerged myself into, soaking it all in, and for the first time I was not relieved to hear the sound of the bell ring.
Seeing him jolt from his seat with his backpack flung over his shoulder had awaken me from my trance and before I could get my baring he was already gone, giving an enthusiastic wave as he uttered out "bye, tell you more about it next time" in a sea of voices, I had heard him clearer then all the orhers.
— — — — — — —
And now here I am dressed in costume for spirit week, on the same bus, taking the same sharp turn, running over the same speed bump, and hearing the same outdated horn.
As I sat something about the word mimicry had come to mind
I had once said that copying correlated to escapism and fear, but as I sit on this same bus, In this same seat, I also like to add that it can also mean admiration and passion. To copy something you are passionate about and in return let others see that passion, and in an ironic way, see a bit of the true you underneath. I mean I'm bouncing a toaster my knee for omnissiah sake in a red cloak for spirit week so I hope so
As I rode the bus I couldn't help but realize that it had been the only stagnant thing during my entire experience of school; even now, as I returned from school break with spirit week around the corner it still remained the same unchanging anchor. The same speed bump driven over, the same sharp turn, and the same blaring horn 5 years past its expiration date. It all remained the same, unchanging and unaltered.
It had also brought another thought, a word to be exact, one that held great significance and deep meaning in my life.
"Mimicry"
People say copying is an inherently negative quality to do, that it expresses laziness and a lack of creativity from a person. I'd say it also expresses escapism and fear.
The escape of being yourself, of accepting yourself, and the fear of being found lacking of a perceived version that others have of you. That was the kind of Mimic I was. Shattering and altering myself in fear of never being accepted and found lacking in others perceived value of me.
To this day. I am still a mimic.
Chipping away at the statue of myself until the original design had been lost to the void, and in its place a mockery of everything I had tried to be, a transformation going merely surface deep. If one were to stare upon the edifice of my creation, they would merely see an amalgamation of poorly crafted details; a hunched shoulder here, another rounded out and protruding with confidence there, a neutral frown, an egotistical smile, a corked eyebrow, a fake laugh, a swaggering leg, a shuffling foot, a head raised with the future on its brow, and another lowered in awkward self-contemplation.
I had chipped, and chipped at myself until nothing of the original me remained. In its place, a cobbled-together tapestry of what I had perceived as acceptance had taken over like a festering root.
— — — — — — —
The cafeteria was a place that turned my stomach into a nest of coiling serpents, leaving a self constricting ball of anxiety in the pit of my core.
It was a place where those of similar interests gathered, to indulge together in like-minded subjects and topics within their own safely protected sanctums.
It was also my kryptonite. A place where all my efforts of fitting in could be unraveled under the most minute of pressure. For no matter how convincing a mask appeared to be it was just that, a mask. The things I had forced myself to learn were only skin deep, just enough to pass under the simplest of gazes, but if ever called out directly would shatter like obsidian glass.
To avoid such a calamity I chose a table away from everyone. It was quiet, isolated, and by the main entrance for a quick escape. A place where no one sat.. except for today. Someone else had beaten me to it and now I was left with a dilemma, gazing about to find another lone island only to be met with failure for they all were taken.
I can't recall the order of events on who had started the first conversation. Had it been me? My attempt at a set of carefully crafted questions and docile words to ascertain what mask would fit this situation best in the hope I could skate by without being discovered? Was it him? in an attempt to break the glacier of silence that had swallowed the table? Though part of me believes it had something to do with the picture of a red cloaked figure with a toaster in its robotic hands set as his wallpaper and why he brought an actual toaster to school…
Whoever had initiated it was irrelevant now, they had opened the gates and unleashed a tidal way of events that I couldn't have seen coming. As if the world had been flipped upside down, that glacier of silence had melted away into a tsunami of passion as he began to explain a universe called "Warhammer 40k"
As I watched him babble on and on I could only stare in silent fascination. The more he spoke the more I became enthralled. His explanations were poorly done, rushed, sloppy, unstructured, and crude, but with each word spoken in the weaving of this convoluted disorganized mess of a story, there was something that emerged ahead of it all… purity and love. Every word was spoken with love and care, every backtrack leading to another random pivot of a loosely connected plot so I could get the "full picture". Each side-way branch leading to further redoubling for the next one and so forth and so forth.
By the end, I could make neither head nor tails of things. It was comparable to being strapped to a v8 engine and let loose on the tracks after downing half a bottle of Hennessy. ' Super soldiers, Demigods, actual gods, fake gods, space wizards, elves, green frat boys, immortal Egyptian machines, knight Mecha, spiraling cities touching past the clouds.' It sounded like someone had taken every stray idea possible and mashed it together in some amalgamation of a story with no restraint… but the love for it was felt with every word and the more he spoke the more it drew me in.
Before I knew it time had come and gone in a blur of wild tales and ludicrous stories that I had fully submerged myself into, soaking it all in, and for the first time I was not relieved to hear the sound of the bell ring.
Seeing him jolt from his seat with his backpack flung over his shoulder had awaken me from my trance and before I could get my baring he was already gone, giving an enthusiastic wave as he uttered out "bye, tell you more about it next time" in a sea of voices, I had heard him clearer then all the orhers.
— — — — — — —
And now here I am dressed in costume for spirit week, on the same bus, taking the same sharp turn, running over the same speed bump, and hearing the same outdated horn.
As I sat something about the word mimicry had come to mind
I had once said that copying correlated to escapism and fear, but as I sit on this same bus, In this same seat, I also like to add that it can also mean admiration and passion. To copy something you are passionate about and in return let others see that passion, and in an ironic way, see a bit of the true you underneath. I mean I'm bouncing a toaster my knee for omnissiah sake in a red cloak for spirit week so I hope so
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