i'm a waste of breath, of space, of time

"Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once upon a time there were four girls. One was pretty. One was clever. One charming, and another one was mysterious. But they were all damaged, you see. Something not right about the lot of them. Bad blood. Big dreams. Oh, I left that part out. Sorry, that should have come before. They were all dreamers, these girls.

One by one, night after night, the girls came together. And they sinned. Do you know what that sin was? Their sin was that they believed. Believed they could be different. Special. They believed they could change what they were - damaged, unloved. Cast-off things. They would be alive, adored, needed. Necessary. But it wasn't true. This is a ghost story, remember? A tragedy.

They were misled. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. What can't be.

There, now. Isn't that the scariest story you've ever heard?"

~Felicity's scary story, A Great and Terrible Beauty, pg 313-15, Libba Bray

i was reading this book (i could have sworn that i read it before from the title but couldn't remember it and while reading it again there are a few points that jog my memory but enough that doesn't to make it feel like i'm reading it for the first time) and this part jumped out at me, so obviously i copied it into my blog. i took out all the interruptions and stuff so it's not exactly how it was written, but whatever. the last paragraph is one of my greatest fears i think. 

it also brings to mind this part of bright eyes' song, waste of paint:

I just sit and watch the people there. 

And they remind me of wind up cars in motion.

The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.

And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense.

All your life's one track, can't you see it's pointless?

But then, my knees give under me. 

My head feels weak 

and suddenly 

it is clear to see that it is not them but me, 

who has lost my self-identity.

As I hide behind these books I read, 

while scribbling my poetry,

like art could save a wretch like me, 

with some ideal ideology 

that no one can hope to achieve.

And I am never real; it's just a sketch of me.

And everything I made is trite and cheap and a waste 

of paint, of tape, of time.

*Waste of Paint - Bright Eyes