1 Screaming at all hours, sleep is my enemy. My greatest fear is loud sounds and bright lights.
2 Daddy is a tall giant and the smartest man in the whole wide world, mommy is the best mommy ever. Also, touching the fire on birthday candles is not allowed. Or singing at the table. Or watching scary commercials because mommy is tired of me waking her up at 3AM with my nightmares about the big hungry man in the commercial. My greatest fear is being alone in the dark.
3 I’m still too young to know real hurting, I’m unscarred and the greatest tragedy I’ve experienced is a skinned knee and having my favorite stuffed animal taken from me overnight for bad behaviour. My greatest fear is the day I get married and have to live away from my parents.
4 I’m too short to see myself in the bathroom mirror, the counter is in the way. My greatest fear is the monsters under my bed.
5 I have a birthday party and invite every person I know because I’m friends with everyone. My greatest fear is being in trouble with my teacher for talking in class.
6 I’m a big girl now, I can help mommy with dinner…by tasting her ingredients. I don’t understand why those people on the show daddy watches called The News **** each other. Why does anybody hate anyone? Why are grownups crying? Big girls don’t cry. My greatest fear is quicksand, but fortunately I have multiple plans on how to escape quicksand.
7 Daddy is teaching me how to ride a bike without training wheels and it is scary and I’ve fallen off alot. He told me he wouldn’t let go! I can’t believe he lied to me! I cry and cry but look! Look, I’m doing it mommy! Look! CRASH. I’m starting to read big girl books more easily now. No pictures and only words isn’t as bad as I used to think. One day, I want to be a writer. My greatest fear is falling off my bike.
8 Boys are yucky, and not every girl is my friend anymore. It’s strange, the girls I used to play with have their own friends now. I’m not one of them anymore. A girl told me I was ugly and I felt this odd feeling in my chest like I was falling. Why did it hurt? The only things that are supposed to be able to hurt you are things you can see like knives (which I’m not allowed to use) or falling down, I thought. A girl tells me I am dumb. What a bad word to say, I’m NEVER allowed to say it. It is a mean and a bad word. When I grow up, I’ll never swear. I thought the bad guys were the only mean people in the world? I thought they wore black capes and lived in scary glowing castles like in the movies. The pretty girls in my class who look like princesses are saying things to each other and me that sound like the bad guy’s line in a movie? Why is this happening? I wish on the star every night like princesses do for the girls to stop hurting each other with their words. My greatest fear is that my wish won’t come true.
9 Did you know that fairy tales aren’t real? Did you know that it matters how your hair looks and where you buy your clothes and how many friends you have? Did you know other people care about what you have for lunch? Apparently, those things are true. I don’t like everyone anymore and not everyone likes me. People say some things to me that hurt my feelings and I make someone else cry because I said something just as mean back because I was angry. I didn’t mean to hurt them even though they hurt me. I do things I regret. Am I a bad guy now too? My greatest fear is of becoming a bad guy.
10 I am not a little girl anymore. Girls are turning on girls. Boys are liking girls. Not me of course, but other girls. Suddenly, everyone thinks they are a teenager. Someone calls me fat. Someone says I’m ugly. Someone says I’m dumb. Someone says I’m weird. I like a boy, but he could never like me. Less and less friends, life is growing uglier and far, far colder. Quicksand did not turn out to be as big a problem as I imagined when I was little. Suddenly, I grow up far faster than I should, because if I don’t, I’ll spend way too much time crying. The boys are playing a game at lunchtime, who would you marry if you had to marry someone in the class. One of the boys says he’d: “pick someone stupid like: My name.” Why did my name finish his sentence? “Then I’d shoot her in her sleep after we were married.” He finds out I heard what he said. He tries to talk to me, to apologize but I don’t want to speak to him. I refuse to cry over this. I’m not a baby. But it secretly hurts a lot. I never speak to him ever again. Not a word the whole year, or the next or ever. My greatest fear is being unwanted. And I am.
11 Boys are mean and girls are heartless and cruel. Girls hate me, I hate girls. I hate myself, I hate school, I hate hating everything. I feel worthless, why is everybody else so pretty and perfect? I haven’t been invited to anyone except my best (and only) friend’s birthday party for 3 years. I get invited to a sleepover with girls who don’t like me and I don’t really like them but I don’t know them too well I just know their names and when they think I am asleep I hear them start to talk in-depth about why I am ugly. Scarred. Humilated. Scarred. Broken. Mostly scarred. Why am I so ugly and worthless and fat and stupid? My greatest fear is the monsters inside of my head.
12 New school, new friends, new life. So happy. So, so happy and free. Friends who actually care about me. Friends who heal me. Closer than friends, like sisters. Not alone anymore. My greatest fear is losing all that.
13 Everything is perfect, and beautiful and I am so happy I could cry. I laugh all day and love my life. Until May. Then it fall apart. Jealousy, lies, family problems at home, pasts collide, friends are fake and sisters forever fades into a broken promise. I hate my friend but God, I love her like a sister even though I loathe her so much. It hurts it hurts and I start to feel ugly again. I scar myself, I do terrible thing to my body and myself. I only have a few friends left, but now I know who is loyal, and who never was. My greatest fear is everything that is happening to me as my world crashes, crumbles and burns all around me.
Many years pass, but my mind, soul, and heart are unchanged. Though my age grows larger, I never grow past it all. I’m reliving it all over and over, I still hate myself. Chained to 13.
Please repost if you are trapped in the past too.
Comment! I love to read other people's interpretations and thoughts on my work!
Please repost if you are trapped in the past too.
Comment! I love to read other people's interpretations and thoughts on my work!
