Response Text: Quote from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky

 

‘So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.’

- "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky.

***

…lies, it’s all one big lie made to manipulate those who are drowning.

I hate it.

Trying to mask off a harsh lie by making it seem like a bittersweet truth, dismissing feelings as if they’re snoozing their fancy morning alarm clock.

No, I will never know most of the reasons why I’m here.

No, I don’t have the power to choose where I come from.

No, there’s no such thing as choosing my own path.

At least, in my reality.

Why in the world am I here?

I’m an ambitious human being, like those ambitious kids you see all around social media. However, no matter how much you tried to float, the best you can do is to barely keep your head above the water.

I’m a senior high school student, your average high school student who’s supposed to spend her last year preparing for her future. I don’t feel like a student anymore, and how much I miss it.

I’m a living, breathing human being, like those around me, and even you reading my rambling.

However, I’m just a robot in people’s eyes, and I suppose even mine. Working most nights, with only a few limited hours of sleep, worried about the unknown of whether one day my body will stop working, from the lack of sleep and caffeine overdose.

There’s no such thing as finding my path or making my own path. I’m only expected to do things society expects me to do.

There’s no such thing as ‘me’ in my world; it would always be ‘them’.

I can’t act like I’m happy about it, nor would I accept people telling me to be okay with it.

How am I supposed to be okay? When all this time I’ve been wondering about my trauma and how it always finds its way to the surface, floating in the ocean?

I’ve always thought that if I opened my mouth in open water, I would drown.

But if I didn’t open my mouth, I would suffocate.

So here I am, drowning in the ocean filled with ignorant and so-called ‘humans’. Those who create this atrocity of a saying only to further dismiss us who are drowning.

By Gracelycia Angeline Serat

11th March 2025