Sitting on my bed
Thinking of the days that passed
Standing in the middle of the hall, staring right back at me
The bully from third grade
How he entered my life again
The past, all the memories came flooding back
Panic attack in silence
Crying on the bathroom floor
Cleaning myself up, because that’s what you do when you make a mess
Returning like nothing happened

Slowly watching him take friends away from me
Being the cool new kid
Dating my best friend
Told her what he did to me, she talked to him, he denied
She believed him over me
Everyone believed him over me
Acting like nothing happened
Both of us knowing the history we had
Tormenting me
Hurting me, emotionally and physically
Making myself throw up so that I didn't have to see him
Weeks of doing this
Many doctor visits
To find “nothing wrong”
Not believing that he would do that to me
Made me self-conscious, bleed, feel unsafe, sexually assaulted me… as well as two other girls
None of this was okay

Now I sit in class, and all I can think of is him
Struggling to get work done
But how can I when my past came back to haunt me
Never ending feeling of being uneasy in my own skin
Not being able to function
Shutting down
Feeling nothing
Numb
This is my life now
Parents yelling
Why are my grades dropping?
What’s going on with me?
Get my sh.. together
Before, I got straight A’s with the occasional B
Be like that, go back to that
Feeling as if they wanted me to be perfect

Perfect
That’s what I’ll strive to be
Hiding, keeping to myself anything that isn't perfect
Wanting to share, tell them everything I'm thinking of
Everything that’s hurting me
Digging at me

Sitting on my bed
Pencil in hand
From doing homework, or trying
Not feeling anything
Needing to feel something
I dig it into my skin
Slicing
Making neat lines
Three
At my knee
More crying came when I saw the blood
Pain, I somehow convinced myself, was better than feeling nothing

This was the first time of many
Learning from the same best friend whose wrists are a cry for attention
Thighs, stomach, “random” scratches on my legs
Purposefully having them in places no one checks
And if the scratches are there, they aren't noticeable
No one noticed
If they did, I had excuses
Excuses for everything
Being “clumsy”
Which is believable because I am clumsy
Always smiling, being bubbly, “myself”

Making sure no one ever knew about it
Hiding everything
Waiting for everyone to be asleep before I started crying
Shredding my skin
The scars I will forever carry with me
They're not “beautiful”
Stop lying
They’re ugly and unwanted
Marks to remind myself of my lowest and weakest
Vividly remembering, feeling everything that made me do it
No way of escaping them
Why I made them in the first place
To escape
Sitting on my bed
Wishing I could take back my first time