I have never felt
more confused
than I do now.
being prejudged,
pressure from teachers,
expectations from parents,
insecurities from media influence
or by comparing ourselves to others.
stumbling through
day by day,
low self-esteem,
rumours,
peer pressure,
mood swings,
spots,
hormones,
not feeling good enough,
constant tiredness
and emotions that
we don't even understand
are things that we,
as teenagers,
have to face every day.
Fighting to hold it together
whilst still trying to figure out
who we are.
Self-harm? "attention seeker"
Mental illness? "get a grip"
Suicidal? "cheer up"
They can be so ignorant.
I don't think
that some people realise
how difficult it is
to grow up
in a society
like this.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 10:54 AM UTC
My lunchtime consists of either not eating or stuffing my face till the words "fat *** crawl out of my friends mouth. The words sting me like a bee or a metaphor that's been overused like...being stung by a bee. Let's think about this for a minute though, think about whether or not I should feel guilty for my pleasures. I started starving myself sophomore year, the words breakfast lunch and dinner made me want to puke out the hatred I have for a body whose done nothing to me. At one point I tried to love myself, tried to show that food isn't the enemy it's just the voices in my head that tell me it is. "You should lose weight." "You're out of shape" "Fat *** these count for each stretch mark I have on my body that crept up slowly and silently on me like a murderer to his victim. One was from my dad, two was from my friends, three was from my mom cause she said I was so handsome, four cause I don't deserve to eat, five cause I want to be pretty. Six because guys like me don't get to be pretty.
It doesn't end easily or quickly. I've gone from overweight to underweight to a healthy weight to a weight where I pull back the flabs of skin so I can count my ribs one by one again. I've even gotten to the point where if somebody tells me I look good all I can think is that they're lying. I see a difference between fat and fat, the words itself form the gelatinous image you imagine when thinking of them, sounding sour as it comes off my tongue. You don't have to be a girl to have an eating disorder, a ****** up concept that society hasn't quite grasped yet.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 12:13 PM UTC
One
I hate myself.
Two
I'm scared to sleep at night because whenever I close my eyes it's as if the ruthless words of hatred and disgust that you throw at me relentlessly replay over and over in my head as if it was a broken record perched on the top of a dusty shelf that isn't within a reachable distance.
Three
I don't know who I am anymore. I lost her somewhere within this sea of sadness I plunged myself into.
Four
Fat, Ugly, Worthless. Fat, Ugly, Worthless. Fat, Ugly, Worthless. These are the words that taunt me everyday and latch onto me like a bloodthirsty leech that just found a new piece of flesh to feed off of.
Five
Whenever somebody tells me to be who I am and that they won't judge. I laugh. I laugh because being who I am is just a distant memory. I cant be who I am because I lost when I skipped my first meal. I lost who I was when I learned what it felt like to genuinely hate myself. I lost myself when I learned how to numb myself so that I feel nothing at all. Now here I am in present time, curled up in a ball of my own self pity, crying out all the feelings I wish I had.
Six
Somedays, I wish I could find the me that loves me, but I can't because the horrid words that you uttered to me stabbed her over and over again relentlessly and when you finally walked away, she stood there bleeding out all the love and trust she used to have.
Seven
I hate telling people how I really feel because they take it as a yearning for attention, not a cry for help. I hate telling people how I feel because they would treat me as if I was a problem and not a human.
Eight
I just wish that someone would paint on me as if I were a blank canvas and turn me into something magnificent because I am tired of continuously painting
myself in hopes that my tear-stained cheeks, lifeless eyes, and pain will turn me into the beautiful girl society expects me to be.
Nine
I just wish I was normal.
-b.c.
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 1:22 PM UTC
No one asks you why you are smiling.
Sometimes it's just easier to smile,
By pretending
You become invisible,
You go unnoticed,
And it's easier
Than explaining what you can't put into words,
To souls who don't even care anyways.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
I am me. I am the girl crying on the bathroom floor wishing she never existed. I am the boring sister, the unwanted daughter, and the distant friend. I am the bitter insults from my mothers mouth. I am the guilt from my chest when I bite back too hard. I am the music I rely on to survive. I am the dull foggy days and the long lonely nights I love so much. I am the one no one can hate and the one no one can love. I am the the broken but the not broken enough. I am the tangled collection of thoughts, weaving through one another in my mess of a mind. I am the hopeless future, I am the high expectancies. I am the too-pretty-to-be-ugly and the too-ugly-to-be-pretty. I am the 3am figure stuck to the couch. I am the weight in my chest. I am the hard mornings. I am the restless nights. I am the lost humour, the lost smiles, the lost joy. I am the lost cause.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
when your daughter tells you that she has an eating disorder, believe her.
do not mock her, do not tell her she is wrong. though you could not hear her in the bathroom on her knees at christmas or on her birthday or after dinner, listen to her now.
know that after she reveals this and runs crying to her room that she will lie directly on her floor and place her ear to the carpet and she will hear you discussing her declaration like a bad movie, a critic to the fact that yes she still has all her teeth, but you do not know anything about disorders.
when your son mentions at the dinner table that your daughter thinks she may be depressed, do not shake your head. do not continue your meal, do not let her escape to her room immediately upon mention of the subject. do not shake your head, and do not continue your meal.
when you ask your daughter if she wants to see a psychiatrist and she does not say no, take her. make an appointment, do not cancel it. take her.
after an argument, when your daughter refuses to hug you, do not be offended. do not make a sarcastic remark about how she is "really helping the situation," that will not help the situation either. only know that she is hurt, and that she is only sixteen.
when you buy your daughter acne treatment and teeth whitener and brand new makeup and pore strips and she refuses to use them, do not yell. rather, attempt to fathom why your daughter may be boycotting your unrequested purchases, and try to find three things about her more important to you than her appearance.
when your daughter tells you that last night she sat in her closet for an hour so that she could be safe from you due to the way her her heart races and her palms sweat every time she hears the sound of your footsteps outside of her room, please reevaluate the way you talk to your daughter.
when your daughter tells you that she is sick and that she cannot go to school for the fifteenth separate time this semester, ask her about in what ways she is feeling ill, because one does not contract the flu fifteen separate days over the course of five months. that is not how the flu works. it is not likely that she has been physically ill to the point where she will lay in bed until past the time she was supposed to be getting home from school. do not accept the fact that she has a "headache" and do not let her tell you that she is just fine, because she is not.
when your daughter stays up all night doing homework but does not complete her work, do not nag at her. do not tell her that you and her father are "just waiting for her to have a mental breakdown" or to “stay out of your face when she loses her mind” like you know she will, do not tell her for the twentieth time to get her life together. it will not help her get her life together.
when your daughter tells you that she thinks she may be depressed, listen to her. do not fail to notice the words "years" or "finally".
do not simply forget about it, do not wake the next morning and assume that just because she is at the breakfast table eating her cereal that all is well. do not assume that last night she did not make a detailed plan to **** herself and that the only thing that stopped her was a line of a song, and a boyfriend.
when you notice that your daughter has stopped going out with friends, stopped going to practice and stopped trying in school, do not yell. do not lecture. try to predict what she may stop doing next. but do not yell.
do not say things like that she is “upsetting your household” statements like that make it very clear in the head of your daughter that the household she lives in is not also hers, and that you do not want her around. do not make careless statements in front of your teenage daughter.
though you may not know that the most common word in all of her google searches is “depression,” it should not take that for you to realize that she has a problem. though you did not see her ask the internet how many of her vitamins she would have to take until she could be sure she would not wake up, it should never have gotten this far.
do not tell her that you are sorry. it will be too late.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
tell me someone will love me
fully clothed
and
tell me someone will love me
with blood on my hands
and
tell me someone will love me
shaking, trembling, convulsing
and
tell me someone will love me
when they're searching for gold and i am rustic bronze
and
tell me someone will love me
with veins ripped apart
and
tell me someone will love me
with a starved stomach and empty eyes
and
tell me someone will love me
when i am dying
and
i'm asking you
//please love me//
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 4:42 PM UTC
Everyone you have lost is gone forever.
If you try to call the dead, the phone won’t ring.
You won’t hear their voices.
The ground will shake like your wrists.
You will realize this sometime, when you’re in the bath and every nerve in your body is screaming at you to put your head under and count to a thousand.
You are more than a suicide note.
You are more than a suicide attempt.
You are more than cuts and bruises, and friends that abandon you and don’t even say hello in the hallways anymore.
People will leave you, daughter. People will leave you alone and shaking.
You’ll find solace in the most unexpected places, in the boys that look like they belong in the 1970s and in the vinyl that whispers to you while the sun is going down.
Eventually you will find the people that will bend the sky down to you so that you can touch the clouds.
They will become your motivation, they will become the glow in the dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
You will forget that they are plastic, and often mistake them for the night’s sky.
Memories do not always hurt, it’s okay to be nostalgic but do not drown in it.
Do not drown in anything but love, daughter.
Love every leaf, every lover’s vein.
And every single time you think you’re going insane.
You’re not.
Remember that the door is always closed, but always easily opened.
Remember that you can leave.
Remember that you can take the next flight out, start a new life.
Remember that the world is in your piano hands.
You’ll meet someone and call them love because they don’t know the difference between the dull and sharp edge of a knife.
You’ll write poems.
Lots of them.
You’ll write enough poems to fill the walls in all of the rooms in all of the houses you have ever lived in.
You’ll scrawl them on the tree stumps you find temporary homes in while walking in the forest.
You’ll engrave them on someone’s bones after they tell you that they would rather die a thousand deaths than go a second without your energy warming their cheeks.
For every accomplishment, erase five shortcomings from your mind.
Be yourself before you forget who that is.
Be, daughter, be who you want to be;
Be who you know yourself to be.
When the world is sleeping on your shoulders at 4 in the morning, don’t wake it up.
Take a deep breath, rock the earth into a deeper sleep.
Tell the walls your secrets because they don’t whisper.
Don’t tell anyone with a tongue something you wouldn’t want to end up floating back out of their mouths like a catchy song.
When you’re standing up on stage, waiting to start your poem, do not avoid eye contact.
Make everyone nervous with your metaphors.
Make everyone nervous with your passion.
You are the strongest soul you’ll ever be.
And when I die, shall we not meet again,
Remember that I am your mother, daughter.
And mothers, always know best.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
How do I keep good grades
When I can't find the willpower to pull myself out of bed to get to school
How do I keep a good relationship
When no one can convince me I'm worth anything
How do I keep my friends
When they all move away
How do I smile
When all I want to do is break down and cry
How can I love others
When I can't even love myself
How can I be responsible
When I can't remember to eat or do homework
How can I do anything
When I try to sleep
And darkness slips through my dreams
"You're a failure"
"You're worth nothing to anyone"
"What's the point in living anymore?"
How can I face the dark
When you say to "just get over it"
"Just get out of bed"
"Be a good student"
How can I be strong
There's so much weight on my shoulders
Like a freight train of things to do
But I am so weak
My bones are brittle
I have cuts and scars that will not heal
I can't believe in myself
And no one else will
So this train will crush my brittle bones
I'll be nothing and no one
But that's no different than what I am today
I'll be gone with the wind
Shattered and swept away
With no one to remember
The girl who tried her hardest
Which was never enough.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC