The Invincible


I’m tired.

I never admitted this to anyone, barely even to myself, but I’m just … I’m tired. I need to get some rest. I hate that I’m giving up. I hate that I’m not strong as I thought I was. I hate my physical weakness. I hate my mental weakness. I hate that my heart is not made of stone—maybe then I could have taken pain after pain after pain like a man without failing everyone … and myself.

Now they’ve seen me. They’ve seen me get beaten. They’ve seen me pass out. They’ve seen me stay out for two whole days without even opening my eyes a single time. What are they going to think? I have brought shame upon my family. I have brought shame upon myself. I showed weakness.

They weren’t supposed to know I was like everyone else. I was supposed to be different. I have worked hard nonstop, without a day of rest, to show everyone that I was invincible, but this stupid body … it just gave way. How could it? Twenty years of feeding it, nurturing it, giving it all it needed, and because of one stupid injury, it gives way? It collapses when there are people looking? This stupid flesh … it just couldn’t wait a few more hours until I got home to fall to its heart’s content like it does every day! What did I do to deserve such humiliation? Have I not been through enough?

Stupid body!

Now it’s all gone. My image is gone. Now everyone knows that I’m breakable. Now I know that I am breakable. And now it’s been two days since I blacked out. I was out two days, the two days that I should have spent working harder than ever to show them that it was just a glitch in the system, that I am the same as I always was, that I am as reliable as they know me to be.

But now who would want to rely on a human?


August 10th, 2019

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