scrambled thoughts, scrambled self

[certainly]

It's hard to be born as something you're not.

---

It blinds you. You're forced to look inside in a desperate attempt of figuring out what's wrong with you.

When you have no time to ponder, you start to think you're the problem.
Why were you born that way?
Can't I accept myself the way I am now?

There was never any time to think. 

Xuantong was not made for thinking.

When your people are deprived of knowledge, there is no way to rebel.

Everyone around me speaks well of the Emperor.

Who's the Emperor?

What gives him the right to rule?

What makes him think he can abandon his people?

...I cared about all of that once.
But I don't, anymore.
I can no longer call myself Xuantongese,
the same way I cannot call myself by my given name.

Those two gave me knowledge.

Maybe I was manipulated,
but they gave me the solid ground
to form my own ideologies.

I know many people, but I truly trust few.
My relationship with the few I trust is deep, though.
And I might fall too easily into the forbidden trap.
 I don't like this. What am I supposed to do?

When that pest rid me of my sight,
I thought I'd be a liability. I thought people wouldn't stand me.

...but somebody showed me that wasn't true.
Somebody taught me how they saw without seeing.
Somebody taught me how they experienced the world.
And though that condition was temporary,

I felt like blindness was always meant to be.

Like that time five years ago,

I rediscovered myself.

...or at least, it was what I thought at first.

When my vision returned, I knew it wasn't about blindness. 

There's a greater meaning that I'm, ironically, not seeing.

What is it, then? Pushing through adversities? Optimism?

...For the first time, I feel like there is nothing I can do.

I can only ask myself

if an incomplete rediscovery
can really be called a rediscovery at all.

[certainly]

My hand is not my hand.

---

When I look in the mirror,
I don't see myself anymore.
I told it I'd deal with it,
because I had already dealt with it once.

Yet it hurts. I'm scared of appearing in public again.

I'm scared of how people are going to address me.

I'm scared that people will tell me I'm pretty,

and then speak horrors of me behind my back.

And I worry about my relation
with some people in specific.

---

When I was in prison, my mind always turned to you.
When I closed my eyes, I remembered the moments we spent together.
What we talked about. What we discussed.
And it always ended with a phrase of yours.
...I'm not sure if I'm your friend.

Those two swear they don't care about my state.

I taught them about Shenlong and the Four,
and they are like the younger sisters I never had.
They've both already claimed they don't care about it,

but who guarantees me they're not saying it out of pity?

And what does that imply to my Lord?
My lord in Heaven, Shenlong.
Were they watching over me?
Were they curious about me?

...Were they there to watch me cry and scream

just as I was about to attempt to deepen my connection with them?

She tells me that the Four watch over me still.

She tells me that there is hope, that I should

pick up all of the pieces on the ground.

But Shenlong is one of the Four. She's not lying,

but does she know what she's talking about?

And what about them? My Lord Regent?
It is another defeat for my streak.
The heaviest defeat there is.
They claim as well that they don't care about my state,

but I have reasons to doubt that is true at all.

...I don't like it when feelings resurge.
I don't like it when these feelings are bad feelings.
Why can't I remember the good times? Why do I need to remember
the exact thing that has plagued me for twelve years?

I don't know who to direct this hate towards.
I'm not sure if it should be directed anywhere.
Is it the demon's fault that I'm like this?
Or is it solely mine, for losing a battle again?

Ah. 

I can't see my own limbs anymore.