Sometimes when I am asleep, and the wind is coming in through the window of my childhood bedroom, I can almost feel you here. For a sleepover, the way we used to do all the time. It was just our clothes then, I didn’t know what was mine or yours. It was our day then, we never left each other’s sides. It was our life then, a pact that if we made it to 40 and were still single, we’d run away together and live on the beach in Mexico. I always wake up in a sweat from those dreams now. Now I live in your phone as an unknown cell number, I live in your photos as a girl you used to know. I live in that stain I left on the carpet of your truck when my bubblegum ice cream melted. Now I’m the most hated girl. For twenty-five years in a row. If you’ve never been the last choice friend, undiagnosed depression at a very young age, artsy but filled with melancholy girl, then you’ve never been the most hated girl. But I’ve worn her skin all my life. At first it was the separate group chat with 9 memb...
I have absolutely no idea who I am. Some days, I hear stories about me, aged 6, picking flowers to bring to mom while she does her makeup in the ensuite. Other days, I remember red-faced tantrums, screaming at the top of my lungs, ready to burst wide open into flames. I remember being bullied so, so badly. And I remember wondering how badly I messed up to deserve it. I remember talking badly about that girl, and feeling really guilty for doing it. Sometimes I am the girl who hosts parties, sometimes I am the girl who leaves them early. Sometimes I’m a good friend and other times I am poor, terrible, no-good friend. Sometimes I beg for people to love me, because I have so much good inside of me. Sometimes I wonder why anyone at all could love a monster like me. Sometimes I sit in my apartment and I can almost see myself, aged 11, walking in through the door and crawling into bed beside me. She hates her hair being touched, but loves her back tickled, and I listen to her tell me about ho...