it only hurts when i laugh

𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳

She looked at me knowingly. "The world hasn't been kind to you, has it?"

I shrugged, setting down my cup. "It never was," I replied. "Since the beginning."

She smiled the kind of smile that is full of compassion but at the same time anger. "You let yourself be lost in its torrent?"

"What was I supposed to do, swim against it?" I demanded. "I will hurt myself."

"But isn't pain the best way to learn?" she said quietly.

I didn't answer. I looked down at my hands.

She sighed. "The world is a cruel river that can take you away from yourself. It was never your fault, nor was it wrong to go along with it. But were you happy? Did it satisfy you to be just like the others, to be ordinary?"

I continued to stare down at my hands.

"You have strayed too far from the banks," she went on. "You lost yourself into the river. But it's not too late to turn back, to fight against the current."

She looked at me, her eyes digging into my own person. "It's not too late to go back to yourself."