Its eleven o three… I know I should be in bed, but I’m not… I know I should be sleeping by now, even though I have off school tomorrow for Easter Vacation… but my head hurts to much for me to be able to doze off… I know I shouldn’t be crying like this but I am… I shouldn’t cry, I really shouldn’t but I can’t help it. No matter what I do, how hard I try, no matter how many times I chide myself for being a baby when I’m supposed to be fourteen years old, they just don’t stop.

Why can’t I change…?! Why can’t I be exactly what they want to be, why didn’t I turn out the way they wanted? I mean, that’s how it works, isn’t it? Parents bring the kids up to be the best they can, they try hard, and the kid turns out to be a good one with lots of friends, interest, good grades, and people like them… That’s how it’s supposed to turn out… That’s what’s supposed to be happening…

But why didn’t it happen to me…?

Maybe it’s because I could stand to loose ten pounds… maybe it’s the way I look a little different with my hair, just all short and everything… maybe it’s because I never really got over this babying habit of crying whenever I’m scared or ashamed or angry or just self-hateful… Teenagers aren’t supposed to cry, except maybe when they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, right…?

But that’s just it. That’s normal… no crying, good grades, friends… that’s all normal. Normal. Average. Just like everyone else, the vast majority of the population… And I’m not normal. I’m abnormal, I’m different, I’m weird. I stand out, and not in a good way… I like different things; I’m not an outdoor person, I still watch cartoons, and I love fantasy novels… I can spend hours just looking outside the window of the moving car and never be bored… I can look at an odd person and smile and accept them… I can spend hours online exploring the vastness of the web rather than the vastness of the backyard with a football.

Sometimes when I’m alone I think up stories of people far away in places I can never get to, people who are so happy and have a happy ending despite the hardships their going through. They’re smart, and don’t make mistakes twice like me, and they fall in love with people who love them and understand them and tell them they’re flawless…

Or other times when I’m sad or I hate something about myself, I make stories where people get hurt and where others are in pain… but not me… I can watch them from afar in my mind, I watch their tale unfold and their pain and suffering… and somehow I know I can make their pain worse than mine, I can make it so I’m better off…

It’s amazing how something that seems so abnormal and abstract to everyone else can make someone feel so…good.

I don’t like hurting others, even the imaginary people in my head, the characters of my private stories… I really don’t… but there’s a slightly good feeling in knowing that I’m better off.

The tears still fall, even when I really try and stop them. I’m shaking, holding my knees to my chest… Oh god, I should stop being so childish! I’ll never improve or make myself better if I can’t stop the simple baby habit of not crying…

Fourteen year olds don’t cry.

I want to be what my parents want me to be… I … I guess I want to be normal… I always think that I’m happy the way I am right now… I like being indoors, and sports bore me. Computers are fun and books are wonderful! But… my dad always tells me that people who don’t go outside and spend time with other people and laugh and play and talk and hang out are normal… and he says I’m weird. I’m a minority.

I guess it all started with getting hooked on the Internet… the vastness of it all… the endless web realms to explore and new things to read and see and discover… But then again my dad also says that I’ve been anti-social since I was little… That I never wanted to play outside with the neighbors… I always like things better inside…

What’s wrong with inside? Outside it pretty, but I prefer admiring it from in here… But that’s not normal, so I have to change, right? I have to be normal… I have to… My dad always tells me I’ll never get anywhere and have many friends if I don’t change.

Parents are so weird sometimes…. They tell you not to follow the in-crowd and be yourself and original… but then when you don’t have more than three or four close friends that makes you weird, and you should strive to become normal.

This wasn’t the first time dad told me this… tonight, I mean… We have these little talks all the time… And this certainly wasn’t the longest… Only an hour… But the crying just won’t stop and I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it!

After all, normal fourteen year old girls who want to be normal shouldn’t cry.

I wish someone would hold me… not my mom or my dad otherwise they’d know that I still cry after I come down here and they’d think I was even weirder.. They knew at one time, but they think I stopped…

But I wish someone were here to hold me, just like in some of those stories that I think up. Usually when someone is really sad a person who cares about them comes and holds them and let’s them cry and say its all okay…

But I don’t want to burden people with my problems… I shouldn’t waste their time, and who knows… they could be going through a lot worse things than abnormality. They could have worse problems then me that I just don’t realize… So I won’t tell anyone…

Bit I can still wish for it, can’t I? Wish for someone to just hold me until the tears stop… Wishing is normal, isn’t it…? Wishing for something that you know you can’t have…? That’s normal, I think… I hope it’s normal… Everyone has dreams… Normal people have dreams and dreams are like wishes right? Some of them can’t happen but we still want them… I’ll sit here and wish… Wish that I was normal… Wish that I could be everything my parents wanted… Smart, social, and normal… with common sense… And I think that even though I really want that to make them happy…

All I really want to wish for right now is that someone to hold me.

Mom and dad are asleep now… but I’m still up, trying not to cry too loudly… I don’t want to wake them up, even thought they’re two stories up… but there’s still that chance that my abnormal crying will wake them, right? Then they won’t get any sleep and won’t be able to work and then they’d know that I still cry…

Why do I cry so much?! Why doesn’t it stop!? I want to be normal, to make them happy, to fit what they think a perfect daughter should be like….!

And crying isn’t normal…

Not for a fourteen year old girl in 8th grade…

So I should stop…

I’m such a failure at being their kid… I’m nothing like what they want… I even lie to them to make them think that I’m the kid that they always wanted to have… I like to make them happy… But it’s all fake… I’m a failure…

Sure, I’d thought about ending it… no seriously… I’m a coward. Even if I wanted to die I wouldn’t have the guts to do it… But it may make them happier, knowing that their little failure never got any worse than she already was…

Because I’m just an abnormal fourteen year old girl….

And I’m still crying.