It always comes now. When I’m alone in my room, wishing for sleep. This is when the day, no matter what, is decided to be a bad one. Because no matter how much I go out, who I see, what I do, it holds no value. I’m can never feel good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, happy enough. All the good moments come out fuzzy, like old photos left in the sun. Except, I don’t have a vintage print. Just a memory and the horrible capability of convincing myself, that the “happy” or “fun” part, was all in my head. Love the Way You Lie by Eminem (featuring Rihanna).

It kills me as my loved ones, the people I love, who love me, would never want to hurt me, crush me down. Because it’s not elementary for me. It’s over thought, analyzed. Every word you say is a crushing blow. Maybe not every word, but quite a few meanings. And it’s sad because you don’t mean to, you don’t know, you could never guess what I’m thinking. So, you’re not to blame. I am. But I won’t tell you. I don’t need to surround myself with broken glass where only the brave and cautious will walk on it to talk to me. Instead I will swallow them down until they are what I’m made of. I am broken glass, so easy to shatter, because I’m not even whole. Then again, it wouldn’t matter if you knew. Some know. They still push me to crumble. Sure, they don’t do it purposely. But you’d think they’d know enough to think about it. Know enough to be there for me, because no matter how casual I act about it, there are times, I really need them. Know enough not to be so negative around me all the time. Know enough to not make me cry. But that’s the thing, they don’t know enough. It’s not common knowledge or human instinct of what to say, what to do. This isn’t normal. But I didn’t ask for this. And I’m fighting as hard as I can. Sometimes, I don’t know what I’m fighting for.

I can remember sitting in my 8th grade science class, Earth Science. I was mindlessly doodling on my binder, listening to the lecture, letting it go in one ear and out the other. But then in the midst of my scribles, my teacher said something, that caught my attention. We were learning about rocks. (You can understand my lack of enthusiasm). And she said “when they’re under to much pressure, they crack”. This caused me to look up. Look at her tan hands as she picked up rocks and turned them over in her hands. Showing us (those who were paying attention) how it’s visible which rocks were under the most pressure due to the cracks in them. I could remember looking and finding myself amongst the rocks, I chose the most cracked one. And I remember being so happily fascinated that we humans, are like rocks. We crack when there’s too much pressure. But along with growing thumbs, I now realize we’ve changed from rocks. We don’t always show when we crack. We can hide it behind wide smiles and shaking hands. Now, I realize I was never the gray cracked rock. I was the pretty shiny black one, smooth to the touch, but you’d never know how it looks inside. I bet it was cracked all over, right below the surface.