I want to tell you a story,
of the little girl who still weeps
in the back of my mind.
Her heart quietly pulsating in her chest,
tears slipping through her closed eyes.

She was ten when she was first called Ugly.
And shortly thereafter, was labelled
Freak. Weirdo. Loser. Stupid.
The girls didn’t want her,
and neither did the boys.
So she was bounced back and forth,
insulted either way.

And late at night,
when the house was sleeping,
she’d still be awake.
Emptying herself until all she felt was
a pure, crushing Numbness.

She didn’t dare tell anyone.
How could she?
It would just make things worse,
nobody could fix her mangled mind.

So she stared at the medicine cabinet,
and wondered if she had the courage to sink into the
obliterating abyss of Nothing.
But the pills tasted bitter in her mouth,
she spat them out.
Yet she still found herself there
again and again.
As the sky bent and shattered above her head.

Adults told her the rhyme.
Coaxed and prodded,
“Sticks and stones hurt more,”
But the sting of tears,
the drop of her stomach,
the pain of abandonment,
told her otherwise.
Don’t tell her that hurts less than stones.


Because no matter how hard she
tries to erase,
she cannot remove the scars set on her heart.
The scrapes and cuts do not fade.

But, no matter how old she grows,
she still sees the dead eyes of that little girl.

And the faint sound of 10 year old tears,
flowing like a waterfall.