“This is the last time I’m going to show you. Give me that pencil.” I feel the pencil slip quickly out of my fingers. I sit watching blankly, the raindrops falling down the panes as my father furiously writes directions on the back of my math homework sheet. His eyebrows are furrowed, his mouth frowning with disappointment like it always is. I don’t want to know anymore. I don’t care.

My father does this every day. He forces me to sit down with him so he can walk me through my homework. By now I’ve lost interest because even if I write the correct numbers and letters in the right places he still finds a reason to shout harsh words at me. Harsh words that fill up my head and stick in my mind like burs to clothes in the woods. And I think I’m still lost in those woods, trudging through the dark. There’s no one to guide me out of the blades and the thorns and the burs. I find myself always missing the bright lantern that burned out three years ago.

I miss her. There isn’t a day where I don’t feel the empty space where she should be like a tooth I lost when I was younger. The space where she used to be, wrapping her arms around me when I got home every day, has forever been empty since and it feels like it’s growing emptier every day when it is still not filled; it has become a black and deep hole and I feel one day it will swallow me whole along with all the blades and the thorns and the burs digging into me.

“Syl, are you paying any attention at all?” My father shoves my shoulder. I blink and look over at him, nodding. He fixes me with a dubious look, lazily challenging me. “Then show me how to do this problem. Go on. Show me.” His voice gets louder, sharper. “Take the pencil and show me.” He tosses the pencil in front of me. I feel frozen again. I stare at the letters and numbers and symbols swirling on the page like a storm. Slowly, I pick up the pencil, picking at the ugly yellow paint with my fingernails as I think. And think and think and think. What kind of problem is this? How do I even start -doing this or this first? Hesitantly, I put my pencil on the paper. I move the negative number from one side of the “=” to the other. “No! No, no, no!” My father jumps up, causing the chair to slip and fall, crashing to the floor behind him. I cringe, dropping the pencil as if I were a preschooler again and had picked up one of the awards I was never to touch. It’s amazing how the pencil could cause something so horrible while other times, it created something beautiful. -Like words. Poems. If only my father ever took the time to read them…

“No, Sylvia!” he shouts, slamming his palms on the table. “You move the negatives first! God, have I taught you anything?”

I take up the courage to look the man in the dark and blind eyes and say a quiet, “that’s what I did.”

He stares at me. How dare I defy him? Angrily he grabs the paper and looks over it, cheeks and forehead glowing red. His knuckles become white, gripping the fragile edges of the paper. I wince again. Shouting curses in exasperation, my father tosses the paper and storms out of the study. The slam of the door feels like it rocks the whole house, casting it out onto a stormy sea again.

The paper, now in pieces, flutters to the floor, torn by the blades and the thorns and the burs like me. I slide out of my chair and gather up all the pieces, crawling under the polished table to collect them all, the newly upholstered carpet soft beneath my worn hands. I place each piece on the floor so I can see my work. I did it right. He said so. I was right. But he still ripped it all apart. I scan the room for tape or staples, but I can’t find anything. There’s nothing to put it back together with. It will have to stay ripped apart forever like the others.
In the kitchen downstairs, I hear a pop and a the soft glug, glug, glug of my father’s favorite wine falling out of the bottle right down his tired throat. No more yelling tonight.

I creep out of the study and down the hall to the little first floor bathroom with the black and white tiles and the old, worn shower curtain and the filmy mirror above the dripping sink. I look back into my unclear reflection, knowing my imperfections are all over my face, even if eyes can’t see them. The light above me drones with the buzzing of the little bugs caught inside, slowly, slowly wasting away. I wraps my arms around myself, trying to fill in the deep and dark hole that is going to swallow me someday -where the kind and loving arms once hugged me. Now it is just my own skinny wrists, scabbed and scarred with past weeks’ sadnesses. I tug at the sleeves of my sweater, covering up my wounds from the blades. The thorns and the burs.
…
The next day is Friday and I ride with my father to school. I watch the rain fall from the sky, dragging down the windshields as my dad watches the road, the scent of alcohol lost in the earlier morning. My heart is pounding louder than the thunder in the distance. Numbers and insults and little letters and cruel smiles and symbols and notes on ripped pieces of paper swirl around in my mind like a hurricane. Lightning strikes across the sky as I get out of the car. Will this storm ever end?

High school. It is only my first year and I already know it doesn’t like me. They don’t like me. -The students who call me over to sit with them at lunch, whispering and laughing as I walk over, who call me their friend. The mocking questions of “how did you do? Did Daddy help you out of an F this time?” rip at my skin. The thorns pull the edges of my mouth upwards and I just nod. I stuff the paper with a big “59%” written in red along with little rings riddling the page around groups of numbers into my bag. A big red note sits at the bottom, “meet me after school”. Doesn’t my teacher already know I’m hopeless? I know they know I’m hopeless, cruel smiles on their faces as one replies with an “Oh, really?”

“Well, let’s see that paper, then!” another one cries and pulls the paper out of my hands before I can hide it in time. There is silence as they pass it around, reading over all the red markings. One by one their smiles grow to sneers and grins and laughs and jeers. “Some help your father did here!” they mock. “Better luck next time. Maybe you’ll get a 60%!” They slam the paper back down in front of me on the table full of sticky old food and gum and candy. I pull the paper off the table and shove it back in my backpack, where hopefully no one sees the wine stain on one of the straps. I sling it over my shoulder and leave.

Making my way down the hall, I slip into the bathroom. I wipe away the tears building up in my eyes, making it hard to see. -Making it hard to see why they’d say that. Why? Why do they want to do that? The paper inside my backpack feels heavier, a weight I’m forced to carry. I take a deep breath -just to make sure I’m alive- and I delve into the rest of the crowd of teenagers full of sweat, swearing, misunderstanding, and being misunderstood.

I stop by the nurse’s office on the way to class like I always do. Lucky kids with stomach aches and bruises from gym class sit on cots. I wish I could stay here forever -where everyone feels just as unwell as I do. I slip into the nurse’s room and she smiles at me with the wrinkles beside her eyes and mouth. She finds the bottle with my name on it. She shakes the bottle a bit before unscrewing the top with her calloused old hands and she drops a red pill into my hands. “Do you need two?” she asks me and I shake my head, no. I toss the one down my throat and say thank you before leaving the office. 

I push my way across the hall into the soft and warm room of my creative writing class. The walls are white bricks and the floor has white tiles. Three windows on one side of the room are streaked with rain and the desks are in rows like the rest of the classrooms, but this class is better than all of them. This class has my notebook on top of my desk. This class has a prompt every day on the board and an infinite amount of time to complete it. I can spend the rest of my time just writing and writing and writing until my pen runs out of ink, until my pencil is too small to use, until my hand is too cramped to move. I can finally tell someone all about what bothers me without worrying what they think. I can finally relieve my brain of all the pressure and stress that’s been ramming against my temples and forehead.

I keep writing through the teacher’s lecture. I need to finish my poem. The edge of my hand all up my pinky is covered with smudged ink from the pen I’m writing with, but I don’t care. I keep writing, the eloquence streaming out of an unknown place in my mind through my hand and onto the page. A stanza here and a stanza there. A word all by itself: those are always more powerful than anything else. It makes you question something that already is. No one ever seems to stop and question something that they just assume. She seems okay to me. She doesn’t have a frown. She doesn’t need help.

Help.
Help me.
I’m drowning.
The seas sweep me up.
A force as strong as my cramping stomach
at night when tears stain my pillow
How much longer?
Enough time to drown.
Let us drag you down.

Pathetic. Your happiness has always been falsely conjured. 

And on my poem goes, smiling to myself at the relief of writing again. Smiling when the teacher calls my name for the list of award-winners for the poetry contest. Everyone claps when my name is said, faces smiling true smiles. My heart is singing. See, I’m not as unintelligent as everyone thinks. I’ve been awarded for my work and it’s the best feeling in the world. It’s the most alien feeling in my world.

On the ride home from school, I show my father the award with its pretty green and swirling letters, the official signature of the judge in the lower corner. My name is typed in a big font on the line in the center. Don’t you see? I can make use of a pencil and paper. I can do things right. I’ve even won a contest. Don’t you see? With one hand, my father swats the certificate away. He scoffs. “Writing. What a joke. There’s no certainty in the language arts. No one can be wrong. No one’s right.” The burs are scratching at my hair and my clothes, sticking in my mind again. Sighing, I watch the rain fall like teardrops down the window, my reflection staring back at me, eyes puffy and red.

Don’t you see?

“Do you think I haven’t heard?” I look over at him, his eyes on the road. “I know you failed another test. Sylvia, a 59%? Do you want to be stupid for the rest of your life or do you want to do something with it?” he yells. The words. The burs. They ricochet around the car, hitting the ceiling, the windows, the dashboards, faster and faster. The car feels as if it’s filling with water and I struggle to keep my chin above the waves. 

Later that night, I lay in bed, watching the stars on my ceiling glow dully in the twilight. My homework is finally finished and I don’t feel like eating. I don’t feel like sitting so close to him with the empty chair between us, never to be filled. I don’t want his dark and blind eyes staring into me, seeing every little thing that wrong with me. And everyone knows that there are plenty of those things.

I’m not smart enough; I am failing at math. I’m too quiet and strange; I’m too nervous to say anything. I have weird scars on my wrists; I need to go to the nurse every day. I write depressing poems about missing someone I lost; someone finds me crying in the bathroom almost every day.

I’m sorry I can’t do math just because my father’s a professor. I’m sorry I’m afraid of how people think of me. I’m sorry I’ve had traumatic depression ever since she died. I’m sorry if writing is the only way I can ever feel better.

I pull the covers over my head, letting the warmth and softness calm me down a little. The silence is nice under my sheets. There’s no blades or thorns or burs under here. No depression triggers or teasing peers or father’s insults. It’s just silence. Tears still fall down my cheeks, but this happens every night. So I just let them fall and gently wet my soft pillowcase under the dull light of the stars on my ceiling. For once, I feel safe.

…
The next day is just like the last. My father drives me to school. I try to avoid all the students who want so desperately to stab me and jab me with their sneers and mocking laughter. They always find me, somehow, though. They circle around me in a briar too thick to escape. They knick me and tear at me until the bell makes them reluctantly dissolve. My math teacher is not any better. My name is always on his venomous tongue, asking “do you understand this? Are you sure? According to your test grade, I’m not sure you do…” How will the weight of embarrassment help me to ever accomplish anything? The laughter that ensues just adds to the burden on my shoulders, causing them to slouch in pain. Later, I go to the nurse’s office again and she asks me if I need two and I tell her no and I down that little red pill and I get to writing class and everything is fine for a little while. Everything is fine. The weight and the cuts and tears are still there, but they’re a little less obvious for a little while. There’s a tiny hope that maybe everything will be okay as I write and write and write in that little notebook on my desk. The red line down the sides and the blue lines across the page make me think of sad things, though. So I write sad things. By the time I get home and my father is done yelling at me and is off finishing his favorite bottle of wine, the little red pill has worn itself out and everything is back to normal again.
Every day is the same. The blades, the thorns, and the burs. Blades, thorns, burs. Blades, thorns, burs. They all circle around and around like a storm that is too strong for one girl to ever stop them. One tiny broken girl. She’s caught in the storm in the middle of the sea and it will never ever stop. She will fall out of her tiny broken boat and drown before the sun will ever shine again. The big dark hole growing around her will swallow her up before anyone’s arms will pull her back out. The emptiness is too hungry for her to stop it alone. Her swollen and red wrists could never be strong enough.        

She seems okay to me. She doesn’t have a frown. She doesn’t need help.
Help.
Help me.
I’m drowning.

With a jolt I wake up. I guess I had been dreaming again.

I roll out of bed and get dressed in a light blue sweater and jeans just like everyone else. I put on the fake smile that looks so realistic in the mirror. I tumble down the stairs and see my father passed out in his bed, another empty bottle on his bedside table. His glasses are still on his face, reflecting the rain that pours down the window. His bedroom is so nice with its detailed oriental rug, the polished dresser and king sized bed. If only she was still there to share it with him. I remember when I was little, I was afraid of the storms at night with the loud thunder and bright lightning. I’d run into this room and hop onto the bed where my mother and father would hold me. But now, things are different. There’s nowhere to hide from the storm now. Sighing, I knock gently on the door to wake him up and continue down the hall to get something to eat and to take a red pill before I leave.

Everything goes as usual. Teachers who call me out for doing poorly on things I tried my very best on. I want to disappear so badly when everyone’s eyes turn to me. I want to disappear when papers are handed back to me saying to try harder, to study more, to “See me after class”, to pay attention. How can you pay attention when all you can think about is the place in your empty heart where happiness used to be? -When all you can think about is that little red pill the nurse is going to give you after lunch so you can feel happy for a little bit. Everyone takes their happiness for granted, knowing that it will come back when they’re feeling sad like a lost dog will someday circle back to your house. But not everyone is Lucky...

At lunch, they all circle around me again. I try to move to a different table, try to sit with someone else who wouldn’t mind, put one takes hold of my sleeve. “Wait! Don’t go! I thought you liked us!” she cries. Her voice, dripping with cruel amusement, catches the attention of people nearby. Will people judge me even more if I leave? They’ll think I’m mean and unfriendly. They’ll think I won’t care about others. Biting my lip, I slowly sit back down.

At first, they don’t seem to acknowledge me much and for a second, I feel a ping of hope that maybe they’ve decided to stop. That maybe they’ll let me feel happy. Of course, I’m wrong. I start to take a book out of my bag so I can study. All my teachers say I need to study more, anyways. The certificate for my poem falls out and glides to the floor. Why must Heaven land in Hell?

One of them snatches it up and laughs. They pass it around and around the table, sneering as if it was my failed math test. Wasn’t this different? I did something right. So why are they laughing? “What is this, some kind of joke?” one says. “Must be. She couldn’t do that. She doesn’t know addition! How could she write a whole poem?” another one answers. They laugh and laugh and laugh. They keep passing the piece of paper around, but the last one never gets to slam it down in front of me in all the sticky food and gum and candy. The shredding of the paper crackles through that air and I wince. The tiny pieces are tossed into the air when the bell rings. I collect each of them with their bits of swirling letters and official signature and my typed out name. I get down on my hands and knees to reach the pieces underneath the table. Maybe my tears help clean some of the filth. Or maybe I belong here. On the floor, I put together the certificate like a puzzle or some math homework.

I run to the nurse’s office because I know that if I don’t take two pills, I’m going to die. I’m going to drown in the storm and in my own tears like little Alice in Wonderland. I’m going to fall down the rabbit hole that’s growing bigger and bigger around me each day, swallowing me. With a little cup of water, I swallow the pills.
In writing class, I ask the teacher if I could get another certificate. She asks why and I tell her I lost it. At least I’m not truly lying. Sadly, she shakes her head and tells me that there are no more of them; the ones she handed out were the only ones that were made. I nod and put on that fake smile again and sit down at my desk. I write about missing my award, about putting it back together on the cafeteria floor and how I wish I had some Band-Aids. At the top right corner I write the letters DR for “don’t read”. I write this on almost all of my entries because no one needs to help me carry the weight of the burden on my shoulders. That’s not fair to anyone.
When I get home, my father sits next to me and helps me with homework. His explanations are riddled with insults and hate. He yells at me again, and throws the pencil across the room this time. The pencil scratches up one of his awards. If that had been me, he would have killed me. He shouts that I’ll never make it to advanced math again. I remember back in middle school when I was a year ahead in math and my father was so proud of me. So much can change in a few years.

Afterwards when my father heads to the wine cabinet, I head to the bathroom. Blades carve into my skin. Maybe I can let out all of it. Will the hole around me be satisfied with blood? Thorns tear at my face, trying to drag a smile back across my face. The scratches sting my cheeks. Burs dig into my mind, reminding me I’m nothing, just like my father said. Just like they all said. I’m nothing. And one day I’ll drown and I’ll fall down the rabbit hole. No one will notice. The sun will rise after the storm and everyone will be happy without me.
Then again… do they deserve it?

Do the students at school deserve to see the sun? They are the ones who drove me into this. They passed around my papers with their cruel smiles on their faces. They destroyed the only thing I had. How would they like such thorns scratching, cutting at their faces every day so no one knows? -So no one calls you out for not being an identical copy of the one before you: skinny, beautiful, happy? And my teacher. The one who wrote so many rings around my paper I got lost in the numerous-eyed monster staring back at me that called itself “59%”. The one who told me to try harder and at the same time told me I will never make it and I will fail every time I ever try.  

I have plenty of thorns to share. Blood drips down their chins that used to move when they laughed at me, talked about me behind my back, and never spoke a word of encouragement. Now, there is silence.

And the burs. No, he doesn’t deserve the sunlight on his still half-drunken face. Whether it is the professor side or the drunkard side that shows, he has banished the side of him that was a dad and that was the part of him I needed the most. He will never be a dad after all the insults that have been stuck to my mind, digging into me. Maybe it takes something digging into him to finally let him understand. I doubt he feels all the blood trickling down his sides because I think he was going to die from drowning himself in liquor anyway.

What about the blades?
I wake up. I guess I’ve been dreaming again. But when I look down at my hands, I scream. Blood stains my fingers, my knuckles, my palms.

My wrists are cut vertically all down the center of my forearm. Blood falls down like a rainstorm to the floor. I finally realize it. Nothing stays forever. -Not the good and not the bad.
I’ll finally be with my mom… No more blades, no more thorns, no more burs.
Maybe I’m not the only one like this.

Of course. There has to be others just like me, struggling for their lives,
Keeping a straight face while inside they are screaming for help.
After all that’s happened to them, things like what happened to me, they need someone.
You think that a person’s face expresses what they feel, but one face cannot tell a story.

Nobody has a perfect life. Everybody loses and sometimes those losses are too much.
Oh, I’m not the only one. I’ve lost. Everyone has lost.
What if, together, we could have won? Me and you. Dad, peers, teachers. We could have won.