Hayley
Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can define toy hurt you

It's okay to say whatever you want to people as long as you know them right?
Sure, as long as you really know them.


When I was in the fourth grade my friend told me I was fat,
With words like fiery tips of earrings they pierced my heart and manifested themselves as dried rivers of red on my arms


When I was in the fifth grade my teacher called me an emo.
Because I was the girl that literally wore her heart up on her sleeves
The scars faded from my arms but appeared on my legs.


In sixth grade the girls at my bus stop called me a whore
because I came to school with my hair in a cluster of tangles and split ends, make up a mess up my clothes never quite matched.
How was your night did you make any money? Sure I played along but it wasn't really funny
Because every word they said became a pink fleshy scar on my waist

Seventh grade: the new kid at the "rich people's school". No ones made actually fun of me yet so I guess that's cool right?
No I don't need people to try to hurt me anymore, their meaningless words speak louder than their friendly actions
The playful but cruel words of my friends: negative, dumb, slut, b****, emo, emo, emo
Like sound waves amplified, so loud they make my heart of glass shatter.


Skip forward a year and I still feel the same way.
It's the reason I sit in the back of math class every day.
I'm stupid
I can't do anything right.
The proof is in the numbers that define my life.
The grades on my report card that dictate the number of times I'll mentally bang my head against the metal of the schools lockers.
Ninth grade when the things I do actually matter if I start to fail my blades will come out of their long hibernation.
Like a long lost child returned to its mother I'll hug the blades tight in my hand,
then tighter still in my legs,
in my stomach and neck.

So the next time you want to call me an emo to my face
Or whisper about my 'whorish' behavior behind my back.
Just remember
You're not only affecting me.

Because this isn't only about me.
I am not the only person to suffer from this disease
It's about all of the people that share the same fate
Which is why I have to fix this now before it's too late.

little brother.
Youre almost done with fifth grade,
You have the same school.
Same teacher.
Same grades.
So what will become of you when the year is through.
Will you spiral down into a black hole like I did?
Will you hug your blades as tightly as I did?
He can't let a number define who he is.
His self worth.
His level of intelligence.
How can I be his role model if I don't want him to turn out like me?
So I have to pretend.
I have to try to get over the stupid comments people make
And I have to try to beat the numbers back
I have to try to convince myself that I'm smart enough for this school.