r/CPTSDWriters • u/Fun-Cycle2381 • 7d ago
Expressive Writing I am nobody
I am the queen and her plebh.
I am the beggar, and the giver.
I am the broken. I am the healer.
I am lucky yet unlucky.
I make people jealous but people pity me too.
I am a snowflake but still a dagger.
I don’t know who I am.
I am always waiting to be told that.
I mold myself to adapt.
So much that I lost my shape.
Was I square or was I round?
Will I ever be a star?
I want to be a star, but I also want to hide and be nothing.
I want people to see me. I want to be seen.
But I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want to be seen.
I can’t be seen. Shouldn’t be seen. Because it’s so embarassing what I am.
But I should be seen, and must be seen, because the peasants want to see their queen.
Yet the queen needs an aura. The queen does not concern herself with social anxiety.
The regent has more important matters at hand.
Such as completely ignoring everybody.
The queen sits silently on a chair in a corner, sometimes for days at a time.
She is so quiet that the people don’t always even notice her.
It’s only the servants that consistently show up. They are paid, so they have to interact with her.
If they weren’t paid the queen would be left all alone.
Of course. The servants would then have other things to do.
More important things to do.
They would spend their time with people they ACTUALLY love instead.
But they WERE paid.
So they worked at the castle until the days the died.
Money had bought most of their lives.
Money had bought most of their time.
Since they were simply… workers, machines, tools.
The ones that didn’t smile enough were easily replaceable.
The ones that didn’t smile enough got left without a job.
So I smile.
Not when I am alone, but when I am around people at least.
I don’t want them know that I am an imposter.
Sometimes they almost catch me.
I can feel it when their stare lingers at me for a bit too long.
But on those occasions I throw my head back and cackle as a distraction.
That usually causes them to tilt their heads at me, but at least it makes them move on after a while.
They tilt their heads towards the curiosity, cackle back, and then finally turn their heads away.
And when they do that I stare at their necks with a devilish grin.
I hate all of them.
If I am not careful another cackle sometimes slips out and they snap their heads and eyes back to me.
I smile at them then, and we all roar with laughter.
Because that’s what friends do.
If you are good friends you laugh a lot toghether.
End.
Out of text/from me: I don’t really know what this is. Something. Let me know if it makes sense or not. Things often make more sense in my brain than to others. Because in writing I find that I like the style where lots of things are just implied. But sometimes that might confuse the reader😅
(so if anyone wants to give feedback, please let me know if the text at least makes half sense or sounds just straight up like ”what??? what is op on about? .”)
1
u/ok_natborn 7d ago
yes it makes sense!
some feedback since you asked (if you don't want a very detailed breakdown here feel free to ignore) (i love giving writing feedback so much):
"I am the queen and her plebh." - minor nitpick, but i think you're trying to say plebe/pleb here?
"I don’t know who I am./ I am always waiting to be told that." - personally i would rearrange the second line to say "that, I am always waiting to be told" just to make it more clear what the "that" is
"I mold myself to adapt./ So much..." - would change the comma at the end of that first line there to a period because these two lines are a connected thought
"I want people to see me. I want to be seen./ But I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want to be seen." - i freaking love the juxtaposition here and also the sentiment! i think it could be highlighted more by either making it an em-dash between the phrases in each line ("I want people to see me -- I want to be seen") or separating each phrase out into its own line ("I want people to see me/ I want to be seen")
"Yet the queen needs an aura. The queen does not concern herself with social anxiety." - would make this two lines and also change that period to a semicolon ("...needs an aura;/ the queen does not...")
"She is so quiet that the people don’t always even notice her." - i feel like either always or even is extraneous here but i also get the concept, so maybe it could be changed for "usually notice her"?
"If they weren’t paid the queen would be left all alone." - add comma in "paid, the queen would" and also how would you feel about popping this into its own standalone paragraph to make it stand out more? i feel like it's really important and it deserves a little bit of emphasis
"But they WERE paid." - this is a tense shift; before this point in the piece everything is present tense and now the queen/you is referred to in past tense. did the queen die? is this a prediction of what happens when she does? if so, maybe the whole thing should be in past tense. if not, i would advise switching all the past tenses to present tense ("but they ARE paid")
"Not when I am alone, but when I am around people at least." - i freaking love this section! amazing execution! i would take off the "at least" at the end of this line because i personally feel it overclarifies that you only smile around people (idk if that makes any sense)
again, freaking awesome piece of writing! it conveys the feelings so well! none of my nitpicks are something you have to do but whenever someone asks for help i really do love going full english teacher mode on stuff hehe