The Girl on the Bathroom Floor

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When I look back on that day, it as if I am looking through the eyes of someone else.

The throbbing in my wrist, aching disappointment in my chest, and numbness of my mind do not belong to me. 

The screaming sound of sirens and empty watchful eyes are visions burned into someone else's dreams, someone else's nightmares. 

In my version, I don't go to school that day. 

I stay home with my little brother and we eat ice cream and watch Phineas and Ferb on my couch.

In my version, I go to every class, eat lunch with my friends, and go home to too much homework.

In my version, I ask my favorite teacher if I can sit in her office for a while. 

In my version, when I get up from my desk, someone calls out my name. Someone notices me leave. So, I sit back down. 

In my version, I can feel my pulse when I wake up that morning.

My only thought as I role out of bed, is that its way too early to be up.

I sleep on the car ride to school. 

I breathe normally because there aren't boulders resting on my chest.

I don't think to say goodbye to my friends. 

I don't think to lock myself in a bathroom stall. 

I don't think that eventaully, the floor will be stained with my own blood. 

In my version, I do anything, that's not what I did that day. 

But I cannot allow myself to falll into guilt and regret.

Because in a way, that day does to belong to someone else. 

Someone who doesn't know her worth.

Someone who doesn't know that she is never alone, and that she is not a burden.

The hole I cut into myself that day, seemed to pour out a darkness all consuming. 

I exuded pain, wrapped myself in anger, and comforted my soul with isolation.

As the darkness left my body, it left a void behind it.  Empty, waiting to be filled. 

So I planted a garden, filled the space with flowers of every color.

Trees so tall and strong, that even when the storms came I was shielded.

In the months that followed, the scars on my body and in my mind began to heal.

I picked up the shattered pieces of my mirror and built myself a better reflection. 

I put casts on my broken bones and taught myself how to walk again. 

Taught myself how to love again.

I am not ashamed of the battle I have fought to get here.

I am not ashamed of the girl on the bathroom floor. 

Because without her, the garden inside me never would have grown. 

Without her, I wouldn't know what it means to live. 

 

 

 

This poem is about: 
Me

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