I’m a great friend. A nice, good, sympathetic person. I’m trustworthy. I’m fiercely loyal. I’m frighteningly open and honest. I’m someone who would never divulge your secrets, even on pain of death. And I make sure my friends know it. You know it too.

But I’m not incredibly attractive. I’m not extremely intelligent, either. I don’t have any particular special talents. I’m the kind of person who’s been teased for years over things I can’t help.

So is that why you insist on keeping me locked away from the rest of the world?

You would have never even given me the time of day in the beginning. When I saw you in the hallway and smiled, you would do that disgusted smirk of yours. The one where you pull one cheek up, showing your teeth in annoyance. Now, you say you feel bad about it, but you shouldn’t worry. I’m used to it.

We would have never become friends if he, the One-Who’s-Name-We-Agreed-Never-To-Mention, hadn’t broken your heart. You would have never thought twice about me if I hadn’t found you, lost in the hallway that day. You wouldn’t have even bothered to learn my name if I hadn’t stopped you…

But I did, and you began to love me. It took a while for you to even glance at me in the halls, but eventually, you did. We grew to be inseparable after school, on weekends, on days we had off. But you made sure we were alone. Sometimes, I felt as if you would get whiplash from looking over you shoulder to see if anyone could see us together.

You never invited me around your other friends; the plastic ones with the bubblegum smiles and honeydew hair. If I smiled at them in the hallway, all they did was turn their noses up to me. I know now who taught you the smirk, or maybe you taught them. Who knows? I don’t doubt that my name came up in conversation between you and them, but I do highly doubt that compliments would follow, ones that seemed to flow from your lips every time you saw me.

But, still, you insisted I was special to you. And I know deep down in my heart that I am. But, I felt the walls around us. The words “no one knows what we share” are the truest to ever slide past your lips.

You shut me away. Like your favorite, old, ratty sweater that is thrown in your closet while you’re in public, but you would wear little else when you’re sure that you’re alone.

Does it really matter that I’m not popular? Is that really what is important? You don’t seem so materialistic around me. You need to straighten out your priorities.

You’re my friends to my face, but not behind my back. I have to admit my spine is getting quite sore right between my shoulder blades. The knife has started to fit, just a little bit too well…

I guess what it all boils down to, is that I’m not unhappy in The Closet. It’s cozy and warm most of the time, and at least I know you’ll come pull me into the light eventually. It’s a comfortable, dark home among the secret memories and the coats. But I do think that you ought to remember:


Sometimes, Closets can create monsters.