Ugh! I'd wanted to stay out of this place! I'd hoped that I was out, that I could leave this part of my life behind me. No. Apparently not.

In ELA today, we wrote short excerpts in the voice of the author in the novel Speak. I immediately knew I would do it by pouring some of that internal pain shit that I try to ignore as best I can into it. Bad idea. Oh, they loved it. They thought it was beautifully written. But…

They thought it was just a story. They thought that what I had written was nothing more than a depressing story about a disturbed girl. Oh no. No, that girl was me. When she walked out of the house and threw her breakfast and lunch out on the way to the bus, she was me. When she carved words into her arm with a safety pin, names she'd been called, pleas for forgiveness, things that maybe if she scratched them deep enough, they would become part of her, she was me. When she was sneered at for her clothes that didn't 'fit' in the hallway, called weird to her face, being accused of being antisocial, greedy, selfish, bitchy, ugly, unwantable, faggot, she was always me. And even if I didn't write all these details into my actual story, I kind of wish I did. I tell myself I AM ENOUGH. Because I KNOW I am. But then there are moments when I question if I really do.

Scratch, scratch-scratch, sccrraaaatch. I find it ironic now, how they're called safety pins when it's so easy to inflict damage with them. Why was I doing this? No, literally, what had compelled me to do this? There must have been a reason, I mean I would need a reason to do this right? But I couldn't remember why. I put the pin down, telling myself that if I didn't have a reason, there was no reason for me to keep doing this. I stared down at my arm where AM I GOOD ENOUGH 4 YOU? Stood out in raised pink lettering. I'm not good enough? Was that my reason?

'But I am good enough.' I told myself reflexively, picking the pin back up. Looks like I did have a reason after all. Scratch scratch scratch. 'If you think you're good enough why don't you eat three meals a day?' I asked myself bitterly. 'If you think you're so secure, why do you cry when people tell you you're not doing enough? If you think you're so confident, why don't you tell people the things that matter? If you think know you know yourself so well, then why can't you put down the fucking pin?'

I didn't cry. I never cry when I'm busy tracing stinging patterns into my skin, the same words over and over. AM I GOOD ENOUGH 4 YOU? AM I GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU? AM I GOOD ENOUGH 4 YOU?

I finally put the pin away. The words on my arm throb lightly with each heartbeat. I figure they'll stay for a day or two. And then realize I own almost no long-sleeve shirts. Fuck. Did I just buy myself a ticket to therapy, yes I did. If my parents ever saw this they would flip. A. Shit. Nope, already been threatened with therapy for the lunch-skipping that it took mom a year and a half to notice. This would guaranteed land me a place with a shrink.

Or worse. I'd have to talk. To my mother. Truthfully. Like, without hiding stuff. Do you know how bad that would be? It would be bad.

I pulled on an even baggier shirt then the one I wore and pulled the sleeves over my hands. That was the night before I went to school and wrote this. Great timing, teacher of ELA. Great timing.