To hell with pain.

Share with me the joy of being a lost teenager. Share with me the agony of walking through a crowd of people and wishing every single one of them would stop looking at you like you like you're a walking plague. Share with me the tense silence of being given up on, the loneliness of being the odd one out.

I want to be the girl who I pretend to be. The girl who laughs loudly and giggles quietly and smiles broadly, and doesn't mind when people talk about her as if she isn't a beating heart. The girl who doesn't care about love, or being loved, or lack of love. She doesn't care how she looks, though she always looks perfect.

My best friend is the enemy I've concocted. She's beautiful and carefree, and easily manipulated and easily manipulates. I thought she'd be gone by now, but she's still standing beside me, hearing me talk badly about her. She's mad at me today, I'll be paying for this later. But I don't care if she knows whether I like her or not. Her sister is the one I like more. She's the real person who struggles to keep her head above the water. She can't swim. She can't swim.

May my downfall be the moments I let reality slip. May this neverending current of flowing pain that I call my game rip people away from their lovers, rip people's purity from their fingers and their necks, rip the coths of people's decency, and turn their lives upside-down.

He's the magician who coaxes me out from beneath the bed. I'm hiding in fear of the truth, and yet he still lures me out of hiding with just that. I feel so small, so miniscule, in comparison to his power. He's not the person you want to be. He's the person you used to be.

My mom gave up on me. She said so herself. "I've given up, Kristen," she said to me a week ago. "I don't know what you want me to do anymore." I want you to listen, Mom. I want someone to just sit down and listen to me, to look past me and see the lonely three-year-old who crawls into her corner of the universe and stays there for months. I want someone to coax this girl out. She just needs to be loved.

I want to be loved. That's all I want. I want to love and be loved and not have people tell stories about me in locker rooms, because I know they aren't true Sally, they're never true. All you wanted was to love and love and love. All you want is to be loved and loved and loved.

She wears blue eyeshadow and smoky stockings. She used to laugh with her best friend against the fence of the schoolyard, but ever since the friend stopped calling, she just leans against it alone with her head tilted to the sky. Her eyes are as green as envy, and her father says it's dangerous to be so pretty. Her father says it's dangerous to be so flighty. Her father says it's dangerous to stay in her life. Her father thinks it's too dangerous to help her.

To hell with this. To hell with the hushed voices of parents looking at me in disgust, to hell with the loud calls of hatred from across the cafeteria. To hell with the people who don't care why I do the things I do. To hell with hell. To hell with pain.