A Rebirth

ctually disappeared. They stuck with her like a second skin, echoing quietly,

up the walls. Her fingers traced the fine, silvery marks on her wrists, ghosts of a fight she had struggled wit

different some of the time to be at ease with her peers. The insults had been small at first, barely significant. They mocked the way she dressed, spoke, and handled her books as

d spill food on her at lunch. One time, they filled her locker with garbage, the stench lingering on her clothes for days. The wor

if she just kept her head down and remained in school, she wou

was the blackes

life. He told her that she was different, that he knew her. And as a moth to a flame, she longed to believe him. That night, for fri

had said no, pleaded with him, and fought, but he was stronger. When he was done, she lay there, broken, her body a stranger to her, her spirit crushed. And when at las

ided mirrors and couldn't bear to look at herself without being ill. The bruises on her arms,

rror was n

he rear. She had been seen leaving the room in a tangled mess, hair mussed,

asking

a cry

lu

h sympathy, suspicion. Friends-if there ever were any-fall away from her. S

She lost her appetite, lost her voice unless necessary. S

of existing in a world that had ever been anything but cruel. The knife was cold, th

n't finished

She awoke in a hospital, the smell of antiseptic in her nostrils, the worried fac

ishing to release her from view. There was therapy, stilted session

feeling tod

but her body would not cease to function? The therapist promised her she would recover eventually an

he wounds on her wrists healed, but the hurts inside her still didn't. She was a

st would always linger, a ghost that haunted the periphery of her mind. But she had survived

he past. No use thinking about it all. She had lear

orns, and the people laughed and screamed in the wind. The world didn't stop for anyone, not

wasn't living. And she didn't know