This isn't a story
about how I overcame a past demon
or how I beat the bully with the power of friendship,
because you and I both know
that didn't happen.  
I don't want this to be another sad teenaged story
about how my boyfriend broke up with me
or how my best friend kissed my crush.
This is a story about how
I was born an unlucky kid
who I was blessed with
tears instead of smiles,
who has more love for other
than for herself,
who is more willing to die
than to live.
I'm just an unlucky kid
who debates whether to live life
or to end it.

I feel like the bad ending of a good movie.
Everyone leaves the theater mad because they want to know what happens next.
But my movie is something different;
there is no sequel or part two. There is no next.
My movie ends.
My movie ends in the middle. Right before the good part happens.
This isn’t a movie about a love story or a movie about a war.
My movie is about a girl,
a girl who grew up with her brain on fire.
Lit with matches held with the hands of inspiration.
The flame grows as time passes. But once the movies at the ******, the flame
it goes out.

I never knew,
I never knew that it would take me 7 months after he left to realize that I miss him.
I never knew how much I love my brother until 7 months after he left for boot camp.
I never knew how much you could miss someone until 7 months and 1 day after he left.
I never knew how time goes so slow until 7 months and 2 days after he left.
I never knew how I could miss the time where he would punch me and call me baby every time I said ow until 7 months and 3 days after he left.
I never knew how I could regret the times I said I hated him over the dumbest things after he left.
I never knew how pain would be the first thing on my mind when I woke after he left.
I never knew that maybe I would never see him again until 7 months and 4 days after he left.
I never knew that I might never get the chance to listen to his terrible irish music and get ice cream with him after he left.
I never knew that it would be weeks until I got to hear his voice.
I never knew that I would look up into the stands and not see him.
I never knew how much it would hurt to not get the chance to hug him after a bad day.
I never knew how much he loved me.
I never knew until now… and now is too late.

I am ugly.
Maybe not in the way the human race perceives the word, but in the way I perceive the word.
I am ugly,
whether that is in the way I smile, look, dress or the way I see the world.
Maybe,
life isn’t about seeing the yourself as beautiful; maybe it’s about seeing yourself
as ugly,
as dull,
as plain,
as unappealing as it is and still, above all of that,
loving everything ugly, dull, plain and unappealing.
I don’t mind being ugly,
because ugly is what I want to be.
You hear someone say the word ugly and you think negatively. Ugly, in my mind, is even better than beautiful.
Everything has beauty, but only real things have flaws.
Being ugly is not about being unappealing to the eye,
but being appealing to the heart.
I embrace the fact that I am and always will be ugly.
I like it that way.
I am full of flaws.
I have crawled my way out of hell and got a little banged up along the way,
whether that is what someone means by the word ugly I am okay with that.
I am banged up.
I am flawed.
I am imperfect, defective, faulty, distorted, inaccurate, incorrect, erroneous, imprecise, fallacious and most of all ugly.
The most shocking part of all of this is that,
you are too.