Is troubled the word that people would use to describe me?
No; but I know that I would.
I am troubled by a constant sinking feeling
coursing throughout my whole body.
No, not sinking.
Drowning.
I tried to drown myself a couple of times when I was younger.
Not to die, just simply to feel it.
There was a burning fire in my lungs
and a resulting ache in my throat,
and my limbs started to go slowly numb
as the light from the top of the water
slowly receded behind my eyelids.

But then, almost against my will,
I went up.
I let myself float back to the surface.
Each time I went back, my life became more of a mess,
and I have always wondered why I couldn't just
drown already.
Just let myself slide down into the calm of the water
Just.
*******.
Drown.

I am drowning though. Every day.
I'm drowning in nothing, and nothing is drowning in me.
Apathy is beginning to take control,
and I'm trying to swim away to loosen its grip,
but it is clinging on and pulling me back down and
drowning me.
Burying me under water and waves,
stealing my breath and making me feel as though
I'm floating through nothing.

So I am a hidden troubled girl;
the feeling and the hurting and the scars
are all tucked away buried nicely underneath
my layer of clothes that no one even wants to take off.

I don't want sympathy--
that has never been my goal.
I do not want unrequited attention all the time,
and I don't want people to think that I'm afraid of being alone,
even though I am.
I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me,
I just want people to know.
I want people to see, and I don't want to lie
and fake
and masquerade
around this tiny ******* town anymore as if
I were the same as
everyone
else.

I am not the girl I seem to be.

I am a troubled girl--
let me be her.