Looking back on my past now, three days before turning eighteen,
I realize how sad I really was and how angry I had been
that society was obsessed with all things material. 
I cut my hair, lost weight and started to line my eyes with black
in order to feel like I mattered.
I cut negative people from my life, slept more and kept my lights off.
You might think I got even sadder but I've never felt more ethereal.  
Because I'm proud of who I am. 
I got into college, the honors college, no less,
and would you have ever guessed
that my father disowned me at thirteen?
I became the ghost I always wanted to be?
No, because that isn't important.
YOU DON'T JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR PAST
OR IF THEIR FATHER LEFT
OR IF THEY LIVE ON THE STREETS
OR IF THEY HAVE TEARS ROLLING DOWN THEIR CHEEKS
You see who they are and what they want to be.
All that extra information is what they are comfortable telling you.
I don't think about my father
or the man that molested me and walks free.
I think about why I am, who I am and where I want to be in life. 
We are all FLAWLESS 
but we aren't made that way.
We are born like a blank chalkboard 
and our experiences are written across the slate.
We erase the bad times but the swipe of our hands still come back white.
Like how some scars don't completely heal but they change who you are. 
The dust left behind are the lessons learned
and the writing left are the things we still have left to learn.
But how can we define flaws if everyone's chalkboard is different?
There is no such thing as a flaw;
it is a fallacy created by man; a social construct made
in order to convince people (mostly young girls)
that they need to be something specific
in order to be considered important
but oh, so wrong.
So, so, so, so wrong.
Nobody is born with confidence
because it is something we are taught.
We should be taught that we are who we are
for a reason
and there is no reason to change yourself 
and there was no need to search for self-fulfillment.
Something that this world lacks
is that less people are taught
and more people have to learn on their own
and the quality of this lesson has to be discovered.
And that

isn't a journey you go on
alone.