The following was my life right down to the last line. Thank Goodness I didn't succeed. Don't let this be your child. Love him without expectations and conditions. I beg you not to teach him to pretend to be someone he is not. It's just too dangerous.

Let's Pretend...

Let's Pretend like I'm just like everybody else. No matter what my feelings/senses tell me otherwise.

Let's Pretend that I like drinking and socializing no matter how I'm screaming on the inside, "This is not what I am like...I'm not like anyone here" and no matter how my head is throbbing from all the noise and seeming chaos around me.

Let's Pretend I can keep up with all of the social politics that are constantly going on around me at work and when I screw up and it's noticed by my "friends," let's pretend it's because I'm just hung over from the night before when we were out at the clubs.

Let's pretend that I'm not on the outside looking in at these people I call my friends. My friends that expect me to continue on with "my act of being normal." To continue to be their "clown" because sometimes I just don't understand what the heck they're talking about so I say something stupid and then when they laugh at me, I laugh with them.

Let's just keep pretending through all of the abuse, being lied to, the confusion of betrayal and the pain and then someday, when it's time to go home.....let me pretend one more time with a smile on my face that I'm so very happy....and after I say my goodbyes and close the door...let me enter the bathroom where the razors are kept/surely they can cut no deeper than the pain of pretending to be who I am not/ let me use them as a way to stop my pain that I have kept so secret... and pretend no more.