Actually, it's only sickening when they're way more creative and talented than you.
At twelve years old.
Sigh.
Small Child wrote this on a whim. She had an idea, and she threw this together.
Made me almost want to smack her.
I am black. I’d always said it made me ugly, that it was a fault in me. He said differently. He said that nothing could be further from the truth. He made me believe that it brought out the beauty in me. And I believed him. I had devoted myself to him, him to me. Why wouldn’t I? We were a pair, a match. And I thought nothing could change that.
Until the day when I woke up and he was gone. I let myself believe that it was against his will, and he was in trouble. Even though the thought pained me, it kept me from facing the lurking belief that he had left me intentionally. I asked his friends, and he wasn’t with them. There was nowhere else I thought to look outside of our dark little town. It was truly dark, and a week after he had gone, the darkness consumed me.
It engulfed me, trying to pull me into its cruel legion of malice. I fought against it at first, convinced myself that he would return to pull me into the light. But he didn’t. And I slowly gave myself away to the darkness, to the cruelty. I started believing that he hated me, that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t perfect enough for him. We had always been different, but different together. We brought out the best in each other.
And so I blended into the darkness, and became part of it.
When you give yourself to someone else completely, you are left with nothing when that someone leaves you. And that is what I was now. An empty black hole, sucking in darkness and spitting out my true emotions somewhere far from here. I started not moving for days, sitting in an empty corner, relishing the loneliness. And nobody bothered me. I was the one without a match, without a pair. I was different, but this time it was only me that stood out.
And then, there was another. He was tossed into the darkness along with me, and I could tell that he suffered the same loss I had. I slowly watched him go through the agonizing steps that I had taken to become the black hole I was. He transformed from something definite and alive into something vague and forgotten, like me. I suddenly realized that I had become a monster, that I was not worthy of a soul mate, a match.
So, slowly, I came to find the light, and stepped into the world. I saw faces that I had seen only in distant memories. I came to the world, welcomed it, even.
But it did not welcome me. The damage was done. I was neglected and tossed aside. I saw friends enjoying the world, savoring it. But they all had a match. They savored life with another, a soul mate, just like mine. I saw them, and I knew I would never be the same. I would never be accepted. Only with him would I be included. I was nothing without him.
I found the other, dark, lonely soul who had gone down the lonely path I had, and I thought it didn’t have to be this way. My soul mate was elsewhere, but could I not be a pair with another? I approached him, offered my accompaniment, and at first he declined, as I probably would have, but then he reached out.
It didn’t last. We reached the sunlight once, and that was it. That was that. I was black, empty, forgotten.
Then was the day when he came back. My match. My true soul mate. The one who could fill my blackened skin with love and cherishment.
On that first day, we were distant, unsure, wary. But when night fell, we embraced each other and simply relished in each other’s presence. And now we were together. Whole. A pair.
Because that is the life of a sock. You cannot be anything without your match. But when he is lost or forgotten or folded in between a couple of towels, you have nothing. But when he comes back, if it is possible, you seem to love him even more. And I do.
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