32. I have this memory of my father and I driving around in a car with the windows down and the wind in my long hair and Led Zeppelin is playing and "The Girl I Love Got Long Black Wavy Hair" is on and my father sings it to me. I don't know if that ever really happened or if I just imagined it did, but either way I can still smell the Black and Milds. A few years later, I am no longer the girl with long black wavy hair. My father cuts my hair above my shoulders and slathers it with chemicals until even I forget that I once wore the long, curly kinky hair of my ancestors and when I remember that I did, I am ashamed. Because I think I am supposed to be.

31. Society tells us that society is telling us who we are supposed to be as women. I think women tell other women who they are supposed to be more than society tells us. People have asked me why I don't wear make up. 'It makes my skin break out' Oh that sucks, I don't leave the house without or I look terrible! (I don't think they look terrible. But it doesn't matter what I think. If you think you look like Shrek without make up, then wear make up until you think you look like Human Fiona even if I think you look like JWoww. It's your face and it's your choice. But you should know-- I think Shrek is kind of adorable. Maybe it's the accent.)

30. My mom tells me I can sing very well. I think I can sing very well. I sing on the bus in 8th grade with my friends and a boy tells me I'm off key. I don't think I can sing anymore. I'm self conscious singing around people. But when I'm home alone I sing Rolls Royce's "Im Going Down" and I like the way it sounds. I don't care if I'm the only one who does, but I'm still not singing in public.

29. Nickleback songs. I own two of the Twilight books from when they were very popular. I went to Justin Bieber's first tour. When I say these things, people laugh and say those are secrets to take to the grave. In 2011 when I start liking One Direction, my friends think it's dumb. One Direction comes out with perfume and people call it "a bottle of boy repellent" but I think it smells like Bodega Bay even though I can't imagine One Direction has ever been there. I think Zayn Malik looks like how fresh baked cookies smell but non fans say they are ugly and tone deaf. I don't understand why I'm not allowed to like things that I like without people teasing me.

28. I confused loving the idea of a person with loving the person. I didn't know him at all. Even so, I cried about him. And I still get that feeling in my stomach and that lump in my throat because I can still hear him say "don't take it so seriously,Gomez" and I'm so sorry that I always did.

27. I abandon people because I know what it's like to be abandoned and I can't let that happen to me anymore. I can't be left behind. I can't be left out. I can't sit at home on a Friday night staring at the ceiling because no one likes me. I have to do it because I'm ignoring texts and making up excuses for why I can't hang out. I have to be my own best friend. I have to love myself so that I don't need anyone else to.

26. I imagine futures that take me away from my misery. In all my fantasies, I somehow end up with me messing it all up. I always end up causing a problem. I'm so psychotic that I fantasize about moving to Spain with Dylan O'Brien from Teen Wolf and then breaking up with him because I'm afraid of commitment. Dylan and I had two kids when I realized I don't do long term relationships. I'm a hot mess.

25. One time in kindergarten, I read a book with a character who was named Mortimer. I read aloud to the class and pronounced his name as 'More-timer.' My teacher corrected me and some kids giggled. Or maybe they didn't. I've always remembered they did. I was so embarrassed. That was over a decade ago and I still hate the name Mortimer. When I was 8 I couldn't figure out how to spell the word 'else.' It frustrated me so much I cried. I asked my mother how to spell it and when she told me, I went in my room, closed the door, and wrote it over and over and over again. E-L-S-E. E-L-S-E. E-L-S-E.

24. No one seems to get my name right on the first try. I hate my name. I want to meet people for the first time and not have to brave myself for the look of curiosity or age old question of "isn't that a boys name?" A man once hit on me by telling me my name was beautiful. I said "thanks, it's my dad's."

23. I pretend to smoke cigarettes. I just like the feel of it in mouth, in my hand. The warmth and the smoke. The smell. The flame from the lighter. I put it in my mouth and suck in but I don't breathe in the smoke. I tried once and I thought I might die. I suck, I blow out. No holding it in. No breathing it in. One time I just lay on the couch with an American Spirit between my lips and a lighter in my hand. I thought about how time is so slow. I wasnt 5 yesterday. I was 5 12 years ago. It feels like 15. One day it will be 15. One day it will be 30. One day I will be old and weathered if I'm lucky. That's what they tell you. Old age is a privilege. It sounds like a curse. No one likes you and you drive too slow. You get discounts but only because the government is amazed you survived this long with how terrible our health care is. With how high the murder rates are. You're 80 in Detroit? Here's some pancakes for 3 dollars less. You are worth 3 dollars less for making it 8 decades. I made it one decade and a half and I think I am worth my 3 dollars already.

22. I want to cut all my hair off. I want hair down my back. I want curly hair. I want hair so straight it makes curtains jealous. I want a different chin. I want a cute little nose. I want bright eyes. I want darker hair. I want to be skinnier. I want to have a cute butt. I could have all these things. I could be beautiful. I could be the prettiest woman in the entire world and I would still be unhappy. Because its not about how I look, it's about how I see/ how I look at myself.

21. I don't put ice in my drinks. I hate it. I have a fear of things that are temporary. They ruin everything. I haven't put up the wall basketball hoop I won at Dave and Busters because the tape will only work once. I have never lived in one place long enough for me to believe I can put this basketball hoop up. Everything is too temporary for my hoop. I used to write my address down in pen but I haven't done that in 10 years. Everything feels so temporary. Temporary ruins everything but so does forever. I ruin things by trying to make them last forever. Try to make things immortal. There is no in-between, no gray area for how long these last. Because they either die or live forever and 9 times out of ten, things die. Someone hammer that into my brain and my heart because it doesn't seem to understand.

20. There are days when I realize that I could literally do whatever I want to do. I could not get out of bed. I could not eat or rather eat everything. I could steal. I could hijack a plane. I could murder someone. I could do literally anything I want. But I never would. Maybe it's because the second I came out of my mother I was being shown and told exactly how the world works and that when people exercise their free will they are wrong. And yes, I know they are wrong. I know that hurting others is wrong. But I have an obsession with breaking hearts. I have an obsession with being a wolf in red lipstick and short skirt. I will not murder or steal or gain 300 pounds or commit acts of treason. But I will tell your sons that they are the best thing that has ever happened to me, I will touch their arms in ways that seem so simple but send chills down their spines, I will blow kisses and laugh in a way that sounds like wind chimes. And then I will leave without warning. They will forget me, of course. Because boys always want to love me but they never actually do.

19. I don't know how to react to death. I don't know how to react to losing things. I hoard like crazy. I keep old necklace pendants that I'll never buy a chain for but I keep them still. When my grandfather died, I wanted to cry so bad and I tried so hard to but nothing came out. He visited me in a dream a few years later and I was 7 years old again and I wore overalls and so did he and we walked around his backyard and he told me about all the flowers and fruit. I cried then. My rabbit died of some unknown disease and I cried so hard my mother had to drug me with liquid Motrin because I couldn't stop. I think when my rabbit died, my innocence did too. Guerro had been dead for hours, the smell made that clear. While he was dying or already dead, I was out playing and having fun. When I returned later in the day, he was lying in his cage, unmoving, and I shook it and shook it until my mother screamed in fear because I wanted to hold my dead rabbit. She threw him out in an old Walmart bag. I realized then that life was so quickly taken. That you don't schedule death and get a warning. That you don't get take a day to really appreciate who you love before its your time or theirs. It just happens. Life happens so quickly and I wasn'tm okay with it. It was then i decided i wanted to go out on my terms, when I know it's coming. If not, they'd have to take me kicking and screaming.

18. Barack Obama became our first black president in 2008. I was afraid to leave the house because I knew there were people who would not be okay with it. We had to watch the Inauguration Speech in class. Kids that didn't feel comfortable watching the speech because they objected to his presidency were allowed to sit in the hall. Only one girl left. People called her a racist and a white supremacist and threw food at her during lunch. They made her sit alone on the bus ride home and hang out by herself during recess. I didn't want to feel bad for her but I did. Because racism isn't something that is born, it is created. The reason other white people at my school were excited for the first black president was because their parents were open to change and made sure their children felt the same. They made the racism of their ancestors end with them. That girl's parents probably still call Asians "Orientals" and complain about how lazy millennials are. Sure, she could have her own mind and have her own opinions, but she was just a 10 year old girl who had grown up hearing people praise George Bush and thriving on white privilege. When I see young people with 1940s era beliefs and values, I pity them. It must be hard to have parents who don't believe in rights for everyone, even their own children.

17. I am a fair weather Catholic, I guess. I'm not sure that's the best way to describe myself. But when Catholicism can soothe my soul, I am a Catholic. When I see the evils and the money hungry side of religion, I am agnostic. I always believe in God, a higher power. I also believe in science, the Big Bang. I believe that there is a God, but I don't think he's all powerful. I think he's a little human. I think he makes a lot of mistakes. I think we don't always hear from him or ever see him because he's ashamed of what he's done badly. I think the world was created and people were created and we were so disorganized, so unfinished, that a higher power had to step in. I don't like believing that God had everything to do with life or that science did. I like having elements of both. I like to believe everything happens for a reason, but I don't think it does. I think sometimes bad things happen and so do good things and we can try to find a reason why but we may never get that. It won't always make sense, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it make sense. Religion tries to make us not want to make everything make sense. Religion wants us to be okay with "because I said so." But I've never been okay with not knowing the whole story. I think that's why I get disappointed.

16. When I was a child, I didn't understand money. I didn't understand why people were going hungry because they didn't have little pieces of paper and coins with dead white men on them. I didn't understand why some kids had big houses and nice cars and I had a dirty two door car that always smelled like cigarettes. I didn't understand why everyone didn't want to help people that could not help themselves. Why were things like food not a free for all? I guess I still don't get it. Yeah, some people work really hard for their money and that should be rewarded. What about people that are incapable? Is this what people mean by natural selection? If you can't afford an education and therefore get a good paying job, then you deserve to starve? Your children deserve to starve? I don't know. I think there has to be a better way. A way that doesn't make me feel sick to my stomach.

15. I go to group therapy with other teens who feel as bad as I do. It's supposed to be therapeutic, but it makes me feel worse. We get snacks to eat during the session and I eat Oreos while hearing about the bad things that happen to other people. I want to be there for them. I want to tell them that it's okay and it will get better, but I don't think that's true. I hear their stories and I don't believe it will get better. I know I'm in too deep when I can't see a hopeful future. I know I'm in too deep when I want to tell my therapist to stop pretending that I will feel better because all I can imagine right now is feeling worse. I can't picture a happy future with toes in the warm sand and wind in my hair and a hand holding mine. Right now, all I see is darkness and I'm cold and I think my head will explode if I hear the phrase "coping skills" one more time. I cannot cope. I will not cope. I will surrender.

14. I found the meaning of life at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. I forgot it in the morning.

13. I can't hold my breath under water without plugging my nose. I take a bath and put my head under the water. I take it until there's too much pressure in my head and I come up for air. I'm coughing and sputtering and my whole body feels like it's ripping apart. I blow my nose and press my hands to either side of my head, trying to keep it from exploding. And then I sit there for what feels like forever before I realize that it's not over yet. It's still not over. I will always feel like I'm being torn apart. I won't look it, but I am. There's this quote I heard: "You don't have a soul- you are a soul, you have a body." My body is fine. My body is not me. It is my soul that is being slowly and methodically torn apart. I am held together merely by hope, prayer, and good intentions. I am held together by my mother, who is holding me so tight her arms are wrapped around herself.

12. My heart hasn't been a heart in a very long time. It has been many things, but never a heart. It has been a compass with a magnet taped to the bottom, going crazy and pointing every direction: you belong here, you belong there, you belong nowhere. It has been a picture of my father kissing my cheek when I was a little girl, telling me things were as good as they seemed once. It has been nothing but a black hole, sucking my soul in my emotions and leaving just self pity and sorrow. It has been simply a slowly beating muscle, pumping blood all day and all night for someone who wouldn't mind if it stopped.

11. I've never had a good birthday. My birthday parties always end up not happening or going wrong. Sometimes people don't care about my birthday, sometimes they care when I don't. My birthday is not important. The anniversary of the day I entered this world is not important. I came out of the womb. I didn't discover the cure for cancer. I didn't even invent microwave popcorn. I've done nothing but take up space and expel carbon dioxide.

10. There is a war going on. There is always a war going on. People are dying and people are fighting for what they deserve. People are wanting and needing better lives and I am feeling sorry for myself because I'm overweight. That is American privilege. Being able to have your biggest problem be trying to lose weight when there are people in other countries who have always been underweight. I am so sorry. But I will not stop feeling bad about myself. It is who I am. It is in my code. I am an awful person. I am so sorry.

9. I've had this problem my whole life with wanting to be other people. I think that no one can be as messed up as me, so maybe if I were someone else I'd feel better. I always felt that line from that Pink song (Doctor can't you please prescribe me something, a day in the life of someone else) in my soul. Could I be someone else today? When is it my turn?

8. My brother and I have very strong personalities. We argue and never say we're sorry because we are not. We just move forward. Maybe that's not healthy. Maybe that's why I regret so many things. Times I didn't say I love you and times I didn't say I was sorry. Times I was wrong and didn't admit it.

7. I don't forgive and I don't forget. I hold grudges forever and I'll never stop doing that. I don't like being hurt and I refuse to let it happen twice. Maybe that's why I'm so angry. I don't let people apologize and make up for what they did. I just sit around and imagine they're still bad people. Maybe they were never bad people at all.

6. I spend too much time imagining a better future instead of creating one. I spend too much time having conversations in my head. I always lose in a fight against myself.

5. One summer I watched my Shrek VHS every single day. 60 days of Shrek. I know that movie by heart. It's the only movie that keeps me sane. It's the only movie I have good memories of. I can still remember watching it the first time. I still laugh at all the jokes. My father used to quote it all the time when he'd talk to me. That'll do, Donkey. That'll do.

4. I've been afraid of the dark since before I can remember. When it's dark, and I don't have my glasses on, and I feel like a blind person, all I have are my thoughts. An idle mind is the devil's workshop, my mother always said. When it's completely dark, my reality gets distorted and my hands feel larger and my body feels shorter and it feels like I'm sinking into an abyss. I knew the word "abyss" when I was 7. I learned it and finally knew what my thoughts felt like. Dark, never ending, bottomless. Forever.

3. "We might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain...I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this. The reasons have all run away but the feeling never did." I listen to this song and imagine you're holding my hand and telling me to listen to happier music. You're telling me that listening to sad songs and laying on my bed in my underwear thinking about death is something that high school seniors do when they're trying to be poetic. You're telling me that broken hearts aren't poetic, they're pathetic. You're turning off the song and playing "Believe" by Cher. I feel a little better now, thank you.

2. One day I will get out of this suffering. I can see that now. I can feel it. I can almost feel the warm wind and the faint scent of salt water. My toes curl almost automatically and if I'm not mistaken, I can feel the sand.

1. You didn't fight for me and so I didn't think I was worth fighting for. You didn't pick up the phone. You didn't tell me you were sorry. You didn't tell me you were wrong. You gave me all your bad habits. All your bad traits. You made me like this. You are why I am like this, I am why I am here.