All I want is someone to listen, not for long, for 5 minutes,
at home my younger siblings yell and swear. I am left feeling worthless and useless, when each time I talk I am interrupted.
At school nothing is different. My friends all have thier own lives and interests, but they’re eager to speak to me sometimes.
“Can you check my essay?”
“Can you help with this?”
“Where do we need to be up to in the math chapter? Also can you give me a hand, this question’s a bit weird.”

I oblige. I help, because I know some of the things we learn are difficult, and I am lucky enough to have skills in math and writing and history; I score well across the board, and I too would take advantage of someone who had the know-how to help me.

Except these aren’t just classmates; these are my friends. Ones who also ask for help with girls/boys/parents. Ones who have no time at all for me to ask for 5 minutes advice. Or, if I do ask, the attention is stolen.

I understand there are greater worries than myself, and I understand my problems may not be so great. But to find someone to listen, just to hear them? That’d be great.

I’m not one to post this on facebook or twitter or whatever else there is. But god damned sometimes I am tempted. I just wanna sit someone down and have them listen, just for a while. Just so I can clear my thoughts and not feel like no-one appreciates or cares about anything.

Don’t like politics? That’s fine. Don’t wanna hear my troubles? That’s cool. Don’t wanna listen to me ramble about music? About historical figures? About my thoughts in general? Sure, that’s fine, but there has to be a point where someone cares about something I say. And yet I am shut down, I am ignored, spoken over, downtrodden it feels. So I say nothing at all because I don’t know what feels worse; holding it all in or KNOWING no one cares.

Usually it doesn’t feel this dramatic, I just nod and go with it, whatever. But it makes me sad to think, late at night in bed, when I play imaginary conversations in my head they are not with my friends. They are not with my family. They are with my teachers, or a somebody who I meet. And lately I’ve wanted nothing more than a friend who does for me what I do for them. I’m not perfect, true. Sometimes, it is I who does the talking over, not listening. But I try, at least.
And I’ve counted on more than two hands the amount of people I’ve tried to open up to; and the amount of people who’ve shut me down is equal.
“I need help on the math.”

“I need help with this task”
“Can I get help with life?”
No, no, and certainly not!
Quite opposite of how I treat people, really..

My saying yes to these things is not to gain them in reward, but because I care. Because that’s what you do when you value someone, their thoughts, their education, their everything. And I don’t know if I can go on valuing people who don’t even have the least sense to listen to a struggling friend. What’s admirable about that?

-Unheard