From A Flower [#Wattys2016]

Her

She doesn't know what to say anymore.

How to express these feelings that she has.

Thoughts racing a mile a minute,

But no words to describe the barren sides of the road.

The dead end on a lonely street.

The road signs that no one really pays attention to.

Sure, attention comes when it wants to.

A simple "hello" in the hallways at school.

A simple wave or a smile.

And she would greet them back.

Give a friendly wave or smile.

To the friends that she could count on.

Home was not much different.

Her parents never fought.

Her sisters may be annoying,

But fun times would exist.

Memories created.

Unbreakable bonds formed.

But little did they know,

That the sister and the daughter they grew up with,

And raised seemingly to perfection

Would slowly start to decompose.

Names would never seem to bother her before,

But she became more and more sensitive,

Held on to the phrase that kids would say.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me."

Her friends would tease her.

Always as a joke.

But those words left indents

On her very being.

She began to not only believe them.

But to join them.

Join them in saying that she is not good at anything.

Join them in saying that there is not an ounce of creativity inside her.

Join them in saying that she is ugly,

That no one could ever fall in love with her,

No one could ever cry for her.

They didn't know what they were doing.

Stripping away everything that made her up.

She began isolating herself.

Convincing herself that she wasn't good enough.

Locking herself away in her room,

Never to be seen again with a genuine smile shining across her face.

She fell apart from the inside out.

Looking in the mirror and hating what she saw.

Putting a blade to her wrists and thighs,

trying desperately to distort the image that was given to her.

Swallowing countless pills

To avoid having to live another day.

Because who wants to live when death is effortless?

Her parents never let her.

They followed her around.

Making sure to keep those blades out of her hands,

and the pills inside the cupboard where they belonged.

She slowly went insane,

Living day after day.

A once bright and radiant smile

Slowly fading as the days go by.

Forced to recover from her addiction

That took the pain away.

The pain of depression.

The pain in her head,

Making her thoughts ache

And preventing her from rising in the morning.

Depression is not a choice.

Depression is like a creature slowly tearing away at everything you are.

It changes you.

And it changed her.

----------

A/N ~ I found this poem as a document on my computer, and I wasn't sure who wrote it. I read it and I fell in love with it when I realized I wrote this poem for myself about a year or so ago. I thought it was actually really good for one of my first poems written, so I decided to share it with you ❤︎