The Contortionist

They said, “Just be yourself” but there are some girls who can’t. 

There are some girls who are so terrified of stepping on your toes that they will trip over their own feet for the rest of their lives just to please you. These girls will change their skin a thousand times a day, putting on layers and layers of different personalities. Some layers make it so that the edges of these girls are softened, so that their sharp wits won’t cut like they should. Others act as filters, sifting every word and action, shaping each sentence to your preference.

At first, these uncomfortable skins are easy to take off at the end of the day, when there’s no one to please but the silence—and silence doesn’t ask for much. It’s as simple as taking out a tight ponytail. 

But after time, the skins start to become more familiar, and the girl will realize that layering them is much easier than changing them. They will become harder to take off once she’s finally alone. Her real skin will start to fuse with the layers, will start to attach. And suddenly these layers, they don’t seem so easy to remove. She’ll start to feel safe in them, like she’s wearing armour.

Because some girls’ words feel like loose floorboards. If they step a little too carelessly—if they take one misstep—someone they care for will recoil at the sound of their creaking floors. They are told they are too loud, so they will quiet down. They are told they are too quiet, so they will speak up. And one day, they will realize that it’s easier to not speak at all. Because if a girl doesn’t show who she is—if she lets herself fade and shoves her interests and style down—how can they judge her? Isn’t it just so much easier to fit into their ideas? 

Isn’t it so much simpler to become a contortionist than to take up too much space?

After coming to this conclusion, they will start to keep the armour on, and slowly, the girl underneath will fade away. She might forget what it’s like to wear only skin, to be vulnerable and exposed for the world to see. She might forget that once she was a girl who would dress up in princess dresses and run through the forest. And even if she does remember—even if she does try to reach under the armour in search of the person she once was—there won’t be much of her left. She’ll find that the girl that she hid deep down within her—the girl with the vibrant colours—is now washed out and washed away.

She’ll lose herself in the process of becoming what everyone else wished for, because everyone has a different box that they want a contortionist to fit inside.

And that’s exactly what she’ll do.

From box to box, she’ll stumble around in her armour, avoiding the toes that try to trip her up. She’ll dance around her creaky floorboards, ignoring them so no one else knows they exist.

She’ll hollow herself out for you, you know. She’ll leave nothing left inside of her if that’s what you want. She’ll devote all her energy to pleasing the people. 

She’s a shapeshifter now. A contortionist. Because that’s what you made her.

And all the girls outside the boxes will scrunch up their noses and call her fake, but they aren’t trapped, they aren’t stuck inside the confines of others’ expectations. 

She’ll wonder what it would be like to rip off the layers of pretend. Even if it would rip off her skin too, she’ll wonder if it would be worth it to finally be able to scream without the armour muffling her voice.

But then again, without her skin, she’d be vulnerable, and all the piercing comments would hurt a thousand times more. So she’ll keep up her facade, her disguise, because now it’s not just to please, but to survive.

They said, “Just be yourself,” but there are some girls who don’t know how to find what they lost.