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// Jun. 20th, 2019 - The Letter 
// Story: RoMS' Extravaganza 
// by RoMS 
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I fall apart. That’s what I do sometimes. When the fear of exposing myself to the judgement of others becomes too great, I die inside. I don’t want to appear strong or great, just somepony else… to avoid shame. 

If you read this, know I didn’t want you to. I wrote this for me, and my idealized version of you. If you do read further, I entrust you with those words. Please don’t bring shame to me, don’t share these with anypony.
__

Dear Lyra,

Shame is my great enemy. It repulses me. I can’t watch intimate or comedic movies as you’ve witnessed it. When jokes at someone’s expense are coming, when absurd situations arrive, when somepony gets the brunt of an accident, a blunder, a mishap... I retch. 

It hurts, but never in a brutal way. It just seeps–

Cold, void, going outward from my sternum. A heavy weight in my intestines. A dreadful expectation. Fear. Untargeted. Merely plain, constant, background noise. It hits, goes away, comes back. But not a single day passed where I don’t feel it. This Inadequacy. Constant, pounding, self-inflicted to every extent. 


I can't help I hate myself.


I will pull away, evade and even fight. If I can’t, my ears, my eyes, I will cover it all to hide and mutter to drone out the voices that jab the shameful one, that pony whom I always see as me.

It’s hard to concentrate. I’ve too often pulled away from daily life to my phone. I want to text you, Lyra. Every day. I want to tell you I need you. You’re my light, my anchor. The one pony that dims the storm that wrestles in me. A singular storm. Not of feelings but a single one. Anger–


I hate Berry Punch among many and you know it. You never asked me why and I’m glad you didn’t dig. She’s her mother’s daughter. Her mother like my own. An alcoholic. As a kid, I thought then it was normal for adults to drink. A drink to celebrate the evening, one for the dinner, another for the daughter going to sleep. I used to wake up at two or three in the morning to find my mother fast out on the couch, snoring. In her hooves, an expected half-emptied glass of shine. Mom was always furious when she found out stains and sogged rugs and sofa. She never scolded me but I didn’t want her bad self in the morning. I always took the glasses away.


The worst day of my life is a twelve-years-old mid-September Sunday. That day, father was away and Mother and I were cleaning the basement. Every now and then she left me alone, all throughout the day. She always came back, every time more tired. I didn’t understand why she was slow or I could barely understand her. Something was wrong and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t say. So I asked myself, was it me? Finally, father came back with my little brother in tow. 

Home exploded. I saw everything, heard all the screaming. The fight, the shattered things, the broken hopes, the torn pieces of childhood in front of me. My brother hit me in the face as I held him back crying at the top of the stairs.

Even today, I can’t deal with noises. Whispers and shuttered voices behind walls and doors, down sets of stairs are killing me. I need absolute silence or drowning music.


“Daddy and mommy had a fight. It’s normal,” he said. “It’s what adults do.”


If I text you, Lyra, would you see it? Would you hesitate to open the message or answer it? Would you ever answer me again were you to know who I was inside? If I know you saw it but chose not to answer, am I at fault? I surely am. I can see you write to mutual friends online. Did I do something wrong, Lyra? Tell me. I fear you rejecting me. I’d rather know that be left in the dark. Then, finally, you text back and all the weights in the world lift away from me. I’m free. But I know deep down this spiral will soon come back to eat me.

If I were to share my pain and anguish, will you help or back away from me? Being misinterpreted, miscomprehended is my greatest fear. And so I say nothing. I would rather have you and suffer than lose you and be happy.

I don’t want to fight you, Lyra. I love you. I would rather die that falter to the shame of doing what adults sometimes do. And adults like Berry Punch I hate with every atom of my being, from the top of my ears to the tips of every single hair of my fur.

This is a letter to the sea, meant for you, but never for you to read. 

I hurt and I don't want to rip it from me. 

I don't wish it on you or anyone around me. I hurt, so I write. I write to see.

I don’t need painkillers, just ragekillers.

To kill my inadequacies, that you and I can’t relate. To stop telling lies about me to keep you loving me.

Tomorrow I will be back to candies, at work like every day is the same. Wishing hellos and bidding adieus. Taking in the modicum of cash ponies pay for my treats. Is that all there is to be. Work and one day finally die? 

When I see my flank, I always wonder why I want to die. Respite is my guess. But why death when I’ve got sweet. Isn’t that all there is to be? 

Candies don’t taste sweet to me. The truest ones are your many smiles when you enter my boutique. 

I hope I will be the first to go, call me selfish so. I don’t want to you without a smile in a cold parlour. 

Dear Lyra, you’re my anchor. My soul. I love you. 

I love you~