What I Wish I Hadn't Learned Today
Dear Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity:
Friendship. Something that I yearn to feel again. Something that has escaped since the time I was told to leave Ponyville, since the time I was broken and left on a whim. While I can honestly say that I regret I decided that I should be alone, I have been enlightened on things that my greatest teachers taught me.
Yes, honesty is the greatest thing to practice, but sometimes you need to lie to make space for yourself in a community. I have experienced first hand that my wings have symbolized that I should be abandoned from groups because other have described me as strong-willed and bullheaded, unable to listen to others without even being talked to.
Laughter is a great gift but there will be times when only money can buy you the happiness that you crave so much. I cannot begin to express the sorrow that I have felt that no amount of laughter could possibly cure.
Being on my own has also shown that being generous can rarely bring good things; people will burn you and take advantage of everything that you could possibly hope for in life if that is all that you strive to do. Giving money to a pony who needed it and then they expect from you or they’ll threaten your family and loved ones is something that is commonplace here. It is a separate world where I am.
Kindness out here is a rarity, but when it is seen I have experienced it being taken away and crushed underhoof. I was working part-time for a newspaper company and the distribution pony was pulled off and then thrown onto the streets after being fired because she couldn’t see well. She had never done anything but do her job and they spat in her face for it. The same happened to me, I was pulled away from the other workers and told that I was being dropped. When I asked why I was slapped and told that it didn’t matter. I was in a restaurant enjoying my meal and a couple came over to me and started giving me backhanded compliments until I left. Being told that I was beautiful and then taken aside and beaten into submission until I gave him exactly what he wanted was something that I never expected when I was on my own. I have changed my dearest friends, and not exactly for the better; I have been thrust from my bubble of joy that was Ponyville and my little library and was shown from the dirt what the real world was. It isn’t magic and rainbows, it isn’t a ball of friendship that I was told it could be. It is a cold place that will always take advantage of you every change that it gets.
Loyalty is a myth out here. I met a particular pony who told me that anytime I needed help she would be there for me but when the time came, I was at her door and she turned me away. I was told I was ‘undesired’ and ‘useless to everypony’. There comes a time when you can’t take it anymore and you snap. Well I snapped there, in that moment. I did many things that I regret but have paid time and bits for.
And magic, it is all but present here. There is no magical spark here that lets you know when you’ve made a friend, no happiness that I can remember feeling. Anything that is close to it has been a double-edged sword and never anything genuine. Imagine being told that the drink you were just given was fine but then waking up an hour later with every item you had stolen and left alone to fend for yourself in a completely new town. This is the real world. Manehatten to Canterlot, there is not a single good city in this world; even in Ponyville I begin to doubt that I will be accepted there. Yes I might have been before but now I see the prejudice that is present in the daily life that I have lived for the past months and I begin to doubt even myself.
Am I good? Am I able to be loved or feel love or even give love again? These are questions that I both want and don’t want to be answered. The possible denial of the fact that I could feel that same after what I have been exposed to, this toxicity that inhabits every town and city, I fear that even the basic love that I felt from you all would be an unknown feeling.
Being thrown away like trash and torn apart like drapes from windows have changed me. I cannot recall the last time I smiled Pinkie, I cannot recall that time that I was honest to another pony, I can’t even remember over the last time I was shown kindness or showed someone kindness. In all honesty, I am tired and worn from these last months.
What I believe that I can’t learn from this is that friendship is something sacred and should be treasured. I just wish I hadn’t learned it like this. Tears. Broken bones. Blood. Abuse. Hatred. I cannot express the pain I felt in a single letter, it would take a chronicle to have it all written out, every punch and scab relived and rubbed raw. I can only say what I can here, and hope that you understand.
I know that there is nothing I can do about the past, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t do things to me in the present. The countless bruises and scars that I carry now, all reminding me that I was rejected and hated and reviled will be with me forever. I cannot forget these moments in life, but I can live through them, and that will have to do. I’ll probably be coming back to you and I hope that you can accept me again after I so foolishly left you, I hope that you can help console me and comfort me after this time.
Yours truly,
Twilight Sparkle
Author's Note
Just got this idea and decided to write it. No real motivation other than I hadn't written in FOREVER.
Enjoy.
(Edit): Fixed up some errors. Please message me if you see anymore.
