this past sunday after church i was invited to the art gallery of ontario by some of the young adults i know. knowing i had my school work awaiting me at home, i had no choice but to tag along and see where the day would take me. i assumed that we would be visiting the main building, but to my surprise we went to the ocad grad expo, which i had no clue was happening. i was led through the densely packed hallways of this school that seemed uncomfortably familiar to me. i assumed this familiarity was the result of the secret dreams inside my heart: i should’ve pursued the arts instead of the trades. maybe i was meant to be here. or maybe it was nothing and i kept walking through and admiring all the artwork and the people who were brave enough to commit to their passions. it was lovely. i couldn’t stop thinking about it.

i woke up the next day (today) and i was still thinking about it. what was this feeling inside of me? why was this art exhibit so special to me? it can’t just be the art. i don’t actually want to be a professional artist. i enjoy doing this stuff in my spare time. what is going on?? this weight on my heart lingered until the evening and i started to realize that this ocad art gallery intensely reminded me of the alternative school i used to go to. entering the yellow stairwell of ocad sent me back to the walls and chairs and tables and every items of my old school drawn over by paint and markers and every substance coming straight from the minds of troubled and strange teenagers who spent a little too much time on the internet. i know what this is. i know it all too well. it’s simple nostalgia.

this nostalgia tricked me into redownloading tiktok and revisiting my tiktoks—created by my 14 to 15 year old self, during the brunt of quarantine. it was a curious form of torture, scrolling through the painfully unfunny videos that my silly brain would come up with. who was this kid? i can’t believe i was like this. look how far i’ve come. i’m glad i’m not like that anymore but why does this feel so good. why do i miss this time of my life? why do i long to return to my old room and my old self who struggled with himself so desperately? i’m free from that now. i’m free from that now.

after seeing every video that needed to be seen, i reached for the paper in my drawer and my pens that were on my bed from a journaling session a couple hours prior. for context: i’m a doodle writer. i write random things that come out of my head solely for the sensory experience of moving my nice fountain pens across paper. maybe i achieve some freudian slips with this practice but for the majority of the time my writings are completely meaningless. that’s what i expected to happen this time, but i started with a couple questions: “what is this nostalgia—i’ve come so far, why do i want to return so bad?”

more questions followed and slowly turned into statements i couldn’t control. i don’t know where these came from. i’ve never thought of them before. as i was writing i tried to convince myself that this was just a strange emotional outburst, yet i couldn’t help but feel otherwise; this is something incredibly real to my soul. i was beginning to understand why this art gallery meant so much to me.

i wrote a whole lot of bs today, but i also wrote about some things i’ve never realized before. here is my attempt to copy and edit my writings into some sort of vague poetry-esque thing:

i was myself
completely unashamed to express myself how i wanted to
yet i was crushed into normalcy;
yet that was all i ever wanted
now i have confidence in myself and naturally supress myself and
it doesn't feel bad but something inside of me is longing for a space where everyone 
else had the pain of being themselves and were able to do so only because they had
others who felt the same.

i would put on a show for the normal ones then i realized i wanted to be accepted and loved
my normal self was not capable of that.
i had to be their normal so i could be 
of value to them

that is why i have a soft spot for the unfamiliar
the rejects
the unloved 
i was them 
they were me 
why does everyone hate them like they hated me 
i wish they knew i was them
and why did i hate them too: i hated myself i could hide with the others
the normal
if i just laughed too.

i don't want to be an artist
i miss the place where i was normal and didn't have to change and people accepted me why are we so mean to those who have nowhere to go ?
i wish they knew they are loved i wish i knew i was loved
i wish? i stayed in an environment where i could let nature take its course and mold me into someone carefree and
i want to protect the others i wish people understood.

i am still living a performance i am still not normal enough for my church.
friends so i play it up to make them laugh like i did in my adolescence
i always thought that i had changed i didn't 
recognize myself but it's been inside of me all this time he still lives inside me he's just been

i love my friends
they love me
i am a performer
i always have been a performer
to everyone
but i miss performing for other performers
those who knew what it was like to perform
they were my friends too
they understood

now i am here and i cannot go back
i love myself
they love me they love the perfomer
even if they try that's all they will know.

no one will ever know me?
maybe GOd will maybe my mom
she was performing long before i did
i want them to know that i know
their performance too and i love them

i am happy where i am but 
the art gallery was an environment where people did not have to perform for the audience that knows
nothing.

i actually kept a lot more here than i thought i would. i don’t know how much of this is true and how much of it is because of a long day, but i felt that i needed to share this. i don’t want pity but maybe i would like conversation. what do you think? this was my first time doing this kind of poetry. did you like it? was it too pretentious? did you not understand a word i said? let me know in the comments below.