"I exist in the shadows, somewhere she doesn't know"

Do you ever have that feeling that you are in someone else's shoes; that everything that seems to be happening to you are not the way you planned things to be? Do you wake up every morning, doing the same thing over and over again and at the end of the day; you know that you are going to the same things tomorrow? What's sad is that you don't have control when you are wandering around while someone is doing all those mundane things for you. You suddenly realized this skin is not really yours and that someone is actually in it and it's not you.

I have this feeling for eternity and I couldn't make it go away. I don't know how to express it for I am neither bitter nor sad. I don't understand myself and I don't know myself; but I just know this person who shares my bed and appears whenever I look in the mirror is not me. I'm not comfortable being around this person. Yet she has everything any fifteen-year old girl wants: a complete family, lots of friends and a bright future. But I don't like her. She doesn't like me too, I can tell very well. She has taken over my life and there is nothing I could do about it. Somehow, every goddamn night, I want to jump on her bed and put my fingers on her neck as I watch the pupils turn white; as I watch her take her last breath because I never want her to live anymore. I've told myself that I am going to kill this monster.

But she is strong; she has a will of her own. And I also want her around whenever I sometimes feel I need something to rely on to make everything look easy for me. I need her to enjoy the company of my friends or do things in school; I need her to make the appropriate social responses so I won't disappoint my critical bitch ofa mother and someone I look up to like my father. She does all these things for me when I get stoned and slipped away. She enters the perpetual ring of my consciousness and makes all the choices for me.

She is my hero, my mighty provider and even though she is my clone, I've learned to tolerate her. I don't love her nor do I truly accept that she is the one waking up in the morning to do things for me. But I am still alive; I can use my physical body once in awhile but that only happens at night. I am restless and there are those happy moments of insomnia when all I do is dream and to let myself go from all the pressures of an adolescent life when my clone believes firmly in God while I, myself, is agnostic.

She knows the consequences of bad actions but I'm the one who can't resist the temptation. I have a lot of unnatural cravings and sometimes they all manifest at the wrong times. Sooner or later I break her off and I come to exist in the morning instead of her. And when that happens, I don't know what I am to do for she is the one who does all the doing and I do all the sleeping. I am out of control and that is not good. I show no mercy, fear or reason.

What do I live for? My clone seems to know. We exchange places sometimes. One moment she is the kind-hearted girl who is polite and very poised. But then I launch from the surface and become the vindictive, selfish brat that my parents want to get rid off as soon as possible. No one wants to take me in and they all loved my clone. I don't know where shall I be or where I shall place myself when everything I do is disastrous and plain stupid.

You do not suddenly accept the fact you're an outcast; I never did. I just learned to live with it, ignored it and just got it over with. The fact is they wanted my clone to have my life because she can handle it properly. If I become the one who controls my life, I might only get all sorts of troubles and I may not live at all.

I am grateful that my clone is here to protect me and to make everyone else believe I am fine even when I'm not. I cannot live in this world and roam around a dull, melodramatic existence. I'm better off invisible while I watch my clone do all these wonderful things and wish it was me; but it's only a wish, a far, far away dream in the deep slumbers of my twisted mind.

This is my story, you can say. But basically, it's my entire clone doing all the things here but I am inside her. Funny thing is she doesn't know; if she did, she may find a way to destroy me. And I could not let that happen. I may find a way to dispose her once and for all but for the meantime, she'll be here. Each time my clone walks around on a brightly-lit street and maybe, just a maybe, I am her shadow.

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