You are a performer. You do not want to be, but there’s an audience waiting, so you better not mess this up. Acting natural is a skill you’ve honed your whole life, in the mirror, under your breath, in places where no one will see; it’s become routine to shrug off your persona of normality after a long day of feigning interest and indifference in the right quantities. For all intents and purposes, you are as normal as you can be.

It’s dark behind the curtains. You hear murmuring on the other side, excited chattering, whispered questions and comments. You are nervous, but you are supposed to be a professional, so you try to quell your rising anxiety with one of your self-soothing techniques.

In your left hand is an invisible pen. Your hand curls around nothing, and with your thumb you tap out a rhythm against the knuckle of your index finger. Inhale. You imagine each set of taps lowers your cortisol levels. This is one of the better techniques, you’ve found, because flapping your hands is too stereotypical and banging your head is too attention-seeking.

Exhale slowly.

Okay.

The curtains open. Bright, blinding lights shine overhead. They’re warm, too, and the shirt you’d specifically chosen is damp and sticky against your skin. You can barely see the audience through the glare, hazy silhouettes shifting side to side. The rushing of blood in your ears drowns out any ambient noise. You’re in a sensory deprivation tank of your own creation.

An assistant joins you onstage, eyes glossing over you like background. Their expression is devoid of emotion — Not due to any professional protocol or lack of sleep, but boredom. With you. You know this. The knowledge lodges itself deep in your sternum like some burrowing worm and lays its eggs there.

Two hands reach up to your hairline, and in one mechanical, steady pull, the assistant removes your face.

This is your biggest fear.

No one in the audience gasps. No one even bothers looking up. They’re all engrossed in their individual affairs, established groups, conversations far more interesting than you could ever be.

The assistant continues removing parts of you: your shoes come off next, then your clothes, and that shirt you had agonized over falls to the floor without fanfare. Your skin is flayed meticulously, stinging, inch by excruciating inch. Not a soul glances in your direction. You must have made a mistake coming here. They bought tickets to a show — Maybe you weren’t on the roster, and someone else was expected. You must have waltzed in uninvited. You must have. You are intruding on their nice night out, you are ruining everything, and you are spilling blood all over the floor like an idiot.

It’s pointless. You don’t know what you were trying to accomplish, making yourself vulnerable again. You are such an embarrassment. You’re a circus dog, slobbering and loyal to any warm body, performing tricks for an audience of nobody. It’s not even funny. It’s pitiful.

You try to put your skin back on.

It won’t stick.

Oh, no. It won’t stick. It won’t stick.

Your self-soothing hurts now, since you’re all fat and sinew and exposed nerve endings, and the surrounding atmosphere is lighting your whole body on fire, and you’re suddenly, uncomfortably aware of everything because the house lights are on, and people look annoyed, and you’re having another one of your little freak-outs, and they’re going to look at you, oh God, all those people, but isn’t that what you wanted? It’s what you wanted. You wanted attention, but they’re still not looking, no one is going to help you, and the blood reeks like old pennies, and your assistant is gone (their shift ended; it’s not their job to clean your mess,) and you’ve ruined everything.

Your biggest fear is that no one will care. No matter what you do, how much you accomplish, how entertaining, interesting, or talented you are, there is something inherently wrong with you that makes you incapable of being cared about. You keep reaching out, and reaching, and reaching, and no one is on the other side to take your hand. There is no space for you here or anywhere. This is your biggest fear, and you think it’s coming true.