© June 18 2003, Silver Eyed

Dedicated to: J.B.'s sister who is 'that way'. I am so sorry you have to deal with your sister being in --. I am so sorry you never get to see her. This is for you, J.B.

2003:California

I'm laying here, eyes closed.

I can hear my heartbeat.

I can only remember what has happened and what had happened before the hospital.

I was ugly.

No, that's the way my fifteen-year-old mind told me to think.

I wasn't.

I am not.

Ugly.

I'm laying here in this ugly hospital bed with white sheets. I'm not going to open my eyes. I don't want to look at the world. The world is cruel.

It -- this world -- this world allowed me to think I was ugly. The world is crueler than Saddam Hussein.

The nurse -- this one nurse with a soft, whispery voice, like that of a mother's -- has been asking me for days to open my eyes.

Her voice reminds me often of my mother.

The mother I once had, do have? Still have? She's somewhere in this world. I know it. Because if she weren't, I'd.feel it or some nurse would tell me. Wouldn't they?

My mother.the mother I.my mother who never realized, never thought I was doing what I did to myself. She didn't know 'til it was too late. Way too late. By that time, they 'shipped' me over here. To this hospital to get "help".

By my thirteenth birthday, I was size A in bras -- I had waited forever to get there. When I entered seventh grade, the world hit me with an anvil. The kind you see in that TV show -- Tiny Toons or something? -- where it always flies out of the sky and hits the person on the head. Girls were prettier than me. Yes, I had a good amount of friends; these friends had been my best friends since, like, third grade. But I wasn't pretty. And that's all that mattered. The boys would only ask out Sarah, a girl I had thought in third grade was 'ugly' with big shoes and red hair. Now, all I thought about was that Sarah was prettier than me.

In eighth grade, I decided I was going to do something about it. I decided to go a diet. I began not eating breakfast, but eating small portions of lunch and dinner. My parents didn't notice. My friends did. They didn't say anything; I don't know why. I think they did later, to my mom, but I.I don't know. I slowly began to loose weight. I no longer fit into my favorite pair of jeans. I smirked; the diet was working. I avoided scales; they were my enemy. They would tell me how fat I was. At the end of the year at the traditional pool party, my close friend forced me to go on the scale. I looked down. 89 pounds.

When ninth grade started, I began to not eat breakfast nor lunch. By the middle of the year I weighed 76 pounds and then slowly I lost more and somehow -- it went so fast -- I was 60. I felt better. But more tired and lazier.

And that's how I ended up here. The end.

That nurse keeps bothering me.

"Open your eyes, hon."

I hate her and her stupid voice. The voice that reminds me of my mother.

I growl at her, teeth bearing at all. At least that's what I think because my eyes are still not open.

"Please, hon."

I shift my body to the right and try to block out her stupid voice. I won't open my eyes ever. This is a free country! I can do whatever the hell I want. So there.

I open my eyes.

I forgot my rebellion.

I look into the mirror and see what I can see.

Gray faced girl with yellow teeth. Her eyes have dark, dark circles under them. The girl's once-very blonde hair (thanks to John Frieda's hair product, 'Sun In') is now brittle.

I want to go to sleep and never wake up.

I don't want to be me; I don't want to be here in this hospital. I want to be six again and have my mom tuck me in. I don't want to die. But look at me, I'm going to. Maybe today's my last day. I don't know. That's why I have to live my life to the fullest. At least I'm trying.

Kids, don't try what I did at home.