To Those Who Sold Me Short

This is a letter to that girl in 1st Grade, who told me I would never amount to anything, because I was getting better grades than her.

This is for those girls in 2nd Grade, who bullied me to the point of not wanting to go to school anymore, because I spoke better English than all of them combined.

This is for those girls in 4th and 5th Grade, who made me lose my confidence, who alienated me, who made me have no friends, because someone I trusted egged them on, because she was threatened that I would grab her ever-so-smart crown.

This is for that one girl in high school who said my curls looked like pubic hair, the girl who always shouted EWWWW at me in the hallways, the girl who made me cry. This is for her friends, too; the ones who would gang up on me and make me want to kill myself because, damn, I felt THAT small.

This is for that girl who told me I was too dark-skinned to be pretty, because "OMG, why are you so dark, did you go to the beach?"

NO, BITCH. BUT YOU LOOK LIKE YOU DID.

Sorry, lost myself there. Anyway.

This is for all you bullies, all you bitches, all you insecure motherfuckers in my life.

This is for the girl who once told me I was never going to be pretty enough to have a man even consider being in a relationship with me.

This is for everyone who made it hard to love myself.

Because, you know what?

I realised so many things because of your negativity.

I am not pretty, I never was. I am not THAT smart, either.

I am BEAUTIFUL, I am DIVINE, I am BEYOND YOUR EXPECTATIONS, beyond your capacity to comprehend, I am CELESTIAL.

I am ME, and I have discovered, I am all I need to be.

And you all, I realise now, were just passing little specks of dirt that got caught in my eyes and blurred my vision.

Sad Songs

I should not be listening to sad songs, I think, as I play the Twenty-One Pilots' cover of My Chemical Romance's "Cancer" on loop.

Turn away, if you could get me a drink of water, cause my lips are chapped and faded.

I should turn this off before the lyrics start getting under my skin. I stare blankly at my computer screen, quietly contemplating whether slitting my wrists would mean I could get a few months off work, maybe the finance department will finally process my commission.



And bury me in all my favorite colors

You're being over dramatic, again. overthinking, again, pull yourself together.  I shake my head and try not rub the eye shadow from my eyes.

I will not kiss you

Stop this song, it's getting to your head. But it's too late. That line has sent me spiraling off the edge into the darkness I've tried beating into a corner for the past three months. Not for the first time, getting hit by a speeding bus seems more like salvation than tragedy.

Now turn away

'Cause I'm awful just to see

You're being selfish again, wake up. But my mind has gone into a coma and it's happy there, dead or dying, I can't tell the difference anymore. There's worse things in the world, damn it. Just because your world is crumbling does not mean the one outside will stop spinning. Get up.

But counting down the days to go

It just ain't living

I fight the tears, tell myself I'm made of marble, again. I am carved from diamond and will not break. Force myself to smile, again, tell myself not to think of blood and death, and...

Lips are chapped and faded 

Stupid sad song, I tell myself. But I know it isn't the song. I just needed an excuse to succumb to the darkness again. Just for today, tomorrow will be different. I'll be better.

I will not kiss you