If I never leave I'll never live

There's a lonely kind of pain when everyone you know and love has already deciding who you are before you ever got a chance to decide yourself.

The sky I see is purple, pink, and orange sometimes white and varying shades of gray. "It's just blue!" they yell over me, "it's always just been blue."

How am I supposed to be me in an entire town that thinks I'm Jane. An entire town of people who swear they know my name is Jane. "I've known you since before you knew you," they say. "You've always been just Jane."

"Miss Plain Jane Johnson, will you please stand up?" I could stay seated but it wouldn't stop all their eyes from staring at me. The eyes of so many surely see more than mine. The thoughts of so many psychologically suffocate my own.

They're firmly held beliefs are no match for me when I myself begin to doubt. Maybe they're right. Maybe I am what so many say I am. Surely so many can't be wrong.

I lived like that for too long as someone else's role, a part in someone else's play. Until one day I became sure if I never leave I'll never live.

I chose to live And so I left And not once did I regret it.