1Circus Clowns
Love is a circus, and the children who think they're in love are only clowns. In a world where every move is a staged act, what will happen when the clowns have no audience? Perhaps, for once, there will be no need to pretend.
A circus. Ten minutes ago, if someone had told me I would be a clown performing in a circus, I would've told them to drown themselves in the nearest toilet. I've always hated clowns... Aren't they just the scariest things? They give me the creeps, the way they have those smiling faces glued to their faces. Clowns are always hiding something, and it's usually sadness. And hatred. Mounds of hatred- maybe enough to kill someone. Well, I hate them. Maybe because I'm afraid of them... It's human nature to hate what we fear, though. No use in denying it. We don't want to be afraid, so it makes sense to hate it.
We're always duking it out. Word for word, eye for eye, we give each other the stupidest insults we can think up. He calls me names, and I just stare at him like he's the stupidest thing in the world. Meanwhile, there are a bunch of other kids sitting there, watching us, laughing and staring and pointing. They're usually cheering for him, since I'm just an idiot. But everyone knows I'm not really an idiot, because I can get better grades than them any day.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" I'll say.
"Well you're a freak."
Ooh. I'm terrified. A freak. Really? Cool. I always take my names with pride, just to show him he can call me a bitch and I wouldn't care. In fact, let him. Let him punch me in the face and call me the dirtiest names from here to Germany. But I always know he won't, because he doesn't hate me nearly as much as he says he does. He even said so. Honestly, he can be cussing me out one moment and talking to me casually the next. Meanwhile, I look at him like he's the freak, and I'm just normal. Like I could ever be normal. I'm too freakish.
Clowns are freaks, too.
And then I realize, he's as much of a freak as I am. We're both clowns. Clowns with masks that have red cheeks and noses, with big, empty, gaping eyes and a too-big mouth that's always smiling. Our masks are hate. We hate what we fear, or at least we think we do. I think that maybe we're afraid of each other. But only a little bit, because we don't really hate each other. Just enough to be afraid, and like each other just a bit. Do we like pretending to hate each other? Oh yeah. Of course.
And then there's our audience. Clowns only put their masks on to please the audience. Do we put on our masks to please our audience? C'mon, you have to admit. It's pretty funny to see a little boy and a little girl yelling at each other and prodding each other and giving each other the nastiest looks. If it weren't me being the clown, I think I'd laugh.
So if our audience disappeared, what would happen then? The clowns would disappear. The masks would disappear. And maybe, for once, it wouldn't all be a circus act. We wouldn't have to be circus clowns. And we wouldn't have to be afraid.
((A/N: I'd like to remind readers that this is from the view of a kid. It's not supposed to be sophisticated and well-written. Any run-on sentences and that stuff are just ways of expressing one's self.))