The truth was, somewhere down the line, between the hospitalisations and the drugs, I’d somehow lost the cornerstone of humanity: the ability to pretend, to counterfeit the basics of social interaction, to smile when you didn’t feel like smiling, to seem like you cared about other people when you lacked the capacity to care about yourself. So that left me, graceless and wearied, pretending to pretend. ― Alexis Hall, Glitterland It’s difficult, sometimes, for me to understand that I have the power to hurt someone. […]
I could not be that scarless, fearless boy again. But, for a little while at least, I had been someone I could almost stand. Pieces of a better self, reflected in someone else’s eyes.
Glitterland by Alexis Hall