I was never physically beaten. I was never punched, kicked, or cut. I wasn’t deprived of food. I wasn’t sexually abused. Even when you looked at me, you could see nothing wrong. The smile on my face was always encouraging, and I was everybody’s personal cheerleader. I had become to be known as the girl, “who doesn’t hate anything and loves everything.” But secretly, I was hiding behind my own way of defending myself. It was like I was hiding behind a wall, which was half made of glass, and half made of stone. Although, the stone side was weak. It had many cracks and couldn’t survive the smallest touch. The glass side was made of shards, and killed off anything that came near it. Both sides hide behind their unwelcoming faces, both terrible, and both never to help. The stonewall was what I used with most people. Although, and they don’t know it. I tear everything they say apart and the smallest thing could upset me, leading me into a cold world of darkness for hours on end, where nothing was right and it was cold, dark, and the land of lost hopes. Even walking down the hallway at school, I was secretly in this world of darkness, but hiding behind my glass wall now. My glass wall now deflected anything anyone said to me. I didn’t care what they said because I didn’t care. I put on a happy face so they wouldn’t know I wasn’t really listening. But a glass wall is not opaque. I could see them and they could see me. And although the shards deflected most of their un-intentionally cruel words, a few things got through, and it was easy to see how I reacted. This was my problem.

Although not abused in any of the ways you see in newspapers, my own family was abusing me through words. All they seemed to say was that I was abusing them, and I don’t belong with them. They are right. I don’t. But I am stuck with the family I’ve got. All I can hope is that one-day they will be good for something. But for now, their stares were piercing through my wall. I have never wanted anything so much. I had never wanted to die more then I did then.

I force myself never to cry, because crying makes me feel worse about myself. It lets me know that I am showing my weak link. If that link is ever shown, my whole chain will come crashing down. My chain is seemingly made up of steel, and when I cry, my chain is steel, with one paper link. But in reality, my chain was all paper, with one steel link. That one steel link being the fact I know what is wrong with me.

I was tearing my own soul from the inside out. It was like I was slashing at my emotions with a knife, and as blood poured from the open wounds, the heart, exposed now from all the cuts, struggled and tried and tried again to survive, only to get too tired and stop. The heart stopping stops all the pain and blood pouring out, and my soul survives, only to be slashed and attacked by its self again and over again.

All I did was make myself not cry. All I did was wish my life was different, and I never had to hear their horrible words again. All I did was wish for a best friend, or someone to love. That is all I continue to do. All I continue to do is break down my own walls, break the links in my chain, and slash my soul with its own knife. All I do is wish to hear my own laughter someday. All I continue to do is wish.